Being willing to die for a friend is entirely different than being willing to let one get you killed.

Detective Cadillac Holland receives a cry for help from Brian Hollis, his former prep-school roommate, but he refuses to get involved. He changes his mind when he discovers that Brian hijacked a shipping container filled with artifacts from the Iraqi National Museum. Brian now has the Iraqi secret police, the FBI, and the same Russian gangster Detective Holland crossed in New Orleans looking for the cultural artifacts he stole.

There are plenty of reasons not to get involved, but Detective Holland needs a mission, and helping Brian is the only one he can find. Brian’s trail leads to Lexington, Missouri, where the two attended military school, and re-introduces Detective Holland to other classmates who have become powerful businessmen. One owns the container, and another was responsible for delivering it to the Iraqi Museum. Both men claim that their contracts in Iraq are in limbo until the container is recovered, which is a reason to put business before childhood friendships.

There are far more ruthless parties on Brian Hollis’ trail, such as the son of an Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister sent to recover the container in order to pay the ransom a fanatical jihad demands for the safe return of family members and the Russian arms dealer who wants to take the antiquities in trade from the jihad for weapons to spread their cause.

‘It takes all of Detective Holland's wiles to help Brian Hollis achieve what Brian set out to accomplish when he created his elaborate shell game.  The trick in Brian’s game was to keep the shell moving until his trap was set. The prize was a container whose real value could be measured by the ambition and desperation of the parties who wanted to claim it.

The consequences of Detective Holland’s intervention will cost more than anyone imagined it would. He was willing to risk dying for a friend from his past, but that doesn’t mean he would choose to sacrifice himself for anyone else’s future.