In this tale of intrigue, love and revenge, spanning three decades and two continents, retired CIA operative, West Lambert, returns to help the Agency discover the secret behind a cutting edge computer chip manufactured in Lushan, China which could affect the economic balance of power in the world. Traveling first to Hong Kong, Lambert meets and enlists the aid of a beautiful martial arts master, Ching Ping, who is from Lushan. They discover that a revolutionary drug, Joss, developed by Shih Liping, Lamberts nemeses from his early days in Laos, is responsible for the industry changing success at Lushan. Lambert and Ping are sent to acquire Joss for America and in the quest, overcome assassins sent by a Japanese company also vying for the rights to Joss. Joss becomes the catalyst for dramatic increases in American productivity, but the CIA is not satisfied and plots to gain control of Joss. Lambert is covertly dropped into Lushan tasked with stealing the formula. There, he is betrayed by Ping with whom he has become romantically involved and discovers she is actually Shihs daughter. Lambert is devastated when Shih reveals that he deliberately inserted Joss into American culture because he has the ability to alter the molecular structure of Joss to render it highly addictive. Shih boasts that years earlier, when Lambert was in Hong Kong, that he staged a boating explosion to make it appear that Lamberts first love, Bergita, perished. In reality, Shih took Bergita captive, raped her and conceived Ping. Ping overhears her father and in a rage attacks and mortally wounds him. She releases Lambert and together they destroy the Joss manufacturing plant before escaping to America with the prized secret formula.
