Sometimes clues just fall out of the sky.

Nick Reynolds, his pilot's rating barely a month old, drops off the radar at night over the Chesapeake Bay. Investigating agencies call it another tragic pilot-error accident. No trace of the plane is found in the Bay's murky waters. Ike Schwartz, erstwhile sheriff of Picketsville, on vacation, is approached by Charlie Garland, an old CIA friend, to look into the disappearance. Ike's wide-eyed entry into a simple missing person's case catapults him into an international thriller with intimations of terrorism that might threaten the nation and its leaders.