Adrian Dietrich is a prominent member of a Nazi Fourth Reich group in Germany called the Circle. During the war, he was the commander of one of Heinrich Himmler's special SS units that were assigned the task of looting Europe on a scale never before seen. Now, as a successful Berlin art and antiques dealer, he helps to finance the Circle's operations through the black market sale of those remaining artworks which the Allied occupation forces were unable to find. The middleman for these illicit dealings is his trusted American son-in-law. There is one hidden cache of stolen masterpieces, however, that only Dietrich (and a woman to whom he is bound by the secret of his criminal acts while in the SS) knows about. The problem is that he has been unable to get at it for decades as it lies buried in Dresden behind the Iron Curtain. Then the Soviet empire falls apart and now he must retrieve it in secret before others learn of its existence, especially the German authorities or the other members of the Circle. He is an old man now, so the task falls to his trusted son-in-law. The only impediment, it seems, is a scrupulous young architect -- also, not by coincidence, an American.