When Cassandra Sashakovich, a bright but arrogant economist and consultant, is in Riyadh completing a financial forecasting assignment, her cover is blown by a mole from her intelligence agency. A covert agent whose call sign is "Swiftshadow," she barely survives an encounter with a hit man and escapes to Washington, where she is fired by her agency for becoming a liability.

Hunted by terrorists who fear she may have hacked details of their pending operation, Cassie must identify the mole and neutralize the terrorists to recover her life. She finds help in the arms of another rogue agent, Lee Ainsley, and learns how to deal with life on the run from a homeless teen, Ann Silbee. From Riyadh to the halls of power in Washington, from New York's homeless to Hong Kong's center of technology, from the remnants of Silicon Valley to Al Qaeda's Afghanistan, Cassie desperately races against the clock to expose plots by both her own government and the terrorists; an operation that could result in the deaths of millions of Americans. Cassie must come to terms with her own nature, find and use skills she never knew she had.

But even if she survives, will the experience change her into someone worse than those who want her dead? And if she survives is there some way for her to emerge more mature and self-reliant, no longer a naive tool of her country?