At the start of the Iraq War, a priceless antiquity is stolen from the Iraq Museum. The three-thousand-year-old Death in the Reeds once decorated an ancient throne. There are only two in the world, and billionaire collectors will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to secure it. The thief escapes Iraq with his prize, but is murdered before he can sell it. And now the missing antiquity becomes the object of a frantic chase.
In San Francisco, sexy TV star Cass Popadop—close friend to Mickey Judge, recently hired by one of the local stations after being fired from New York—finds out about the stolen art and tries to score a multi-million dollar commission. She tempts the brother of the dead thief to fly to the Mideast, track it down and bring it back to San Francisco.
All the while, hired killer Pete Grand is stalking the object himself, dispatching anyone who gets in his way with a quick toss from a fatal height.
And in the midst of all this grasping greed—all the crooked politicians, the media moguls and rich eccentrics—Mickey Judge finds himself becoming the ultimate bait in a chase for the billion dollar prize.