As a company executive, relentlessly driven to prove himself in the murky world of the global oil business, Ed Brant soon finds that the unspoken rules of corporate life require uncompromising compliance and unquestioning support for whatever will bolster and sustain financial success. Drawn into the world-altering goals of Global Oil - a monster that is now his master - Brant continually struggles to assuage his inate sense of morality by rationalizing its ruthless strategies and finally its unconscionable and plundering ambitions in the Middle East. The process robs him of all decent human relationships, and almost his life, before he sees that the restoration of the 'deposits' in the 'emotional bank accounts' that he has so thoughtlessly squandered is the greatest prize and the toughest challenge of his life.