Freeman Lockhart is working for his old friend Omar in Amman, Jordan, and is spying on him too. Hoping to prevent his own secrets from ever coming to light, Freeman has agreed to report back on his friend to a clandestine agency interested in Omar's finances. In Washington DC, meanwhile, Aliyah Rahim is spying on her husband Abbas. A brilliant doctor, Abbas is crushed by the death of their daughter, which he blames on the post-9/11 mood of hostility towards Arab-Americans, and Aliyah fears he may be planning a terrifying act of revenge. Freeman and Aliyah are pitched into the same deadly game, in which the only rules are violence and deceit.