A treasure trove of Tibetan religious artifacts, known only as the Blue Poppy, has disappeared. Only one man may know its whereabouts. He is former FBI agent Robert Frazier, convicted of espionage and now imprisoned at a high-security federal penitentiary in Colorado known as "Supermax." His one hope for freedom may lie with Dr. Colleen Gale, the psychiatrist hired to help win him a new trial on appeal. But her access to the prisoner also makes her a target, and as the prisoner's story unfolds, she finds herself not only drawn to Frazier, but entangled in the inner circles of the rare art world, and of greed and obsession that reaches all the way to the White House Cabinet. When a prison break designed to abduct Frazier goes array, he and Colleen find themselves running for their lives-hunted by an international art smuggler and assassin known as the Ghost, and by federal marshals who have seen six of their own slaughtered during the mayhem.