A treasure trove of Tibetan religious artifacts, known only as the Blue Poppy, has disappeared. Only one man knows its whereabouts. He is former FBI agent Robert Frazier, convicted of espionage and now imprisoned at the Colorado high-security federal penitentiary known as Supermax. His one hope for freedom may lie with Dr. Colleen Gale, the psychiatrist hired to help him win a new trial on appeal. But Gale’s access to the prisoner also makes her a target. She finds herself not only drawn to Frazier, but entangled in the inner circles of the rare art world where greed and obsession reach all the way to the White House cabinet.

When a prison break designed to abduct Frazier goes awry, Frazier and Gale find themselves running for their lives — hunted by an international art smuggler and assassin known as the Ghost, and by federal marshals who have seen six of their own slaughtered.