Lydia Pallas, a translator for the U.S. Navy, is hired by Alexander Banebridge, or "Bane," a man who equally attracts and aggravates her, to translate a seemingly innocuous collection of European documents, and finds herself in the middle of a secret war against some of the most dangerous criminals on the East Coast.

By the fall of 2007, one well-timed leak revealing that the U.S. government might have engaged in first contact has sent the country into turmoil, and it is all Cora Sabino can do to avoid the whole mess. The force driving this controversy is Cora's whistleblower father, and even though she hasn't spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government-and redirected it to her. She...