It begins in Singapore, where a basket containing the severed head of a Russian naval officer is delivered on the steps of a major Western hotel. Then outside the city's shores, the luxury liner Black Sea, carrying a group of prominent Americans, is hijacked by a band of pirates led by the charismatic and fanatic Tengku Haji Azhar.

The ship is cleverly concealed from the prying eyes of both spy satellites and search planes. The impossible job of finding Black Sea falls on captain Henry Stewart. Schooled in the blood-drenched fields of Vietnam, he will use every treacherous skill he knows to locate the missing ship. But unknown to Stewart, he has an ally on board--Asian expert Maggi Chancellor, who will use all her wiles in a terrifying negotiation to save the lives of passengers and crew.

Caught in the grip of a madman's sinister ploy, Stewart and Maggi have little but a prayer and their own gutsy cunning to stop a madman before he can ignite a holy war no one will survive...