NCIS Special Agent Ruben Carver is back on the job, after three months in the penalty box. The ink hasn't even dried yet, on the results of the internal affairs investigation from his last mission, but he's off the bench and headed for Shanghai. He's been assigned the task of locating and neutralizing a hacker who's been picking the DoD's pockets clean of classified and military critical technologies. Linked to that, is the carved-up body of a U.S. Army military intelligence case officer, pulled from Shanghai's Huangpu river. What Carver discovers is another operation being funded by the international cabal known as The Board and the most dangerous adversary of his career: a woman known by international law enforcement only as Qu. When they meet, Buddha's lesson is realized-"Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional."