A half-starved young Russian in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg in the dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash in a purse around his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa.

Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, is determined to save Issa from deportation. Soon her client's survival becomes more important her than her own career--or safety. In pursuit of Issa's mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the sixty-year-old scion of a failing British bank based in Hamburg.

Annabel, Issa, and Brue form an unlikely alliance--and a triangle of impossible loves is born.

Meanwhile, scenting a sure kill in the so-called War on Terror, the spies of three nations converge upon the innocents...