More than anything else, cable TV reporter Andrea Malone wanted a network job. And it could be hers if she gained a coveted interview with the aging General Ratiff - especially if she uncovered the secret that drove him into seclusion at his Texas ranch. One obstacle was Lyon Ratiff, the general's watchdog of a son. Andrea had a plan, but had no way of knowing how Lyon's unexpected, undeniable effect on her would change everything, how they both would face a storm of suspicion and betrayal - and how Andrea Malone would have to choose between the ruthless demands of her profession and the equally strong dictates of the heart.
Hearing that his old friend Cassiopeia Vitt is in trouble, Malone follows the few clues he has and realises that they are in the middle of something huge, involving Russian and US oil interests and a centuries-old secret. After stumbling across two dead bodies and into the crosshairs of his former boss, Malone finds himself in a race to unravel the mystery of an emperor's tomb, a sinister society, and a deadly battle between two ruthless men for supremacy in China -- and the world.
Ex-agent Cotton Malone wants to know what really happened to his father, officially lost at sea when his submarine went down in the north Atlantic in 1971. But when he uses his government contacts to obtain the submarine's sealed file, he finds he is not the only person looking for answers. Malone is in the line of fire when he is attacked in an attempt to take the file. He is pitched into a lethal power struggle between Dorothea Lindauer and
