A ruthless American killing machine named Rock rules over a secret, blood-soaked empire of riches and murder: Floating City. At his command is the Torch--the tool of ultimate evil that one man can destroy: Nicholas Linnear. But only when he faces the harrowing truth about the Yakuza--the Japanese criminal underworld he despises--and about Koei, the woman he loved as no other, will he find the inner strength to annihilate Floating City and honor his family's debt to the dead of the Yakuza, the Kaisho. While half a world away, his longtime friend and ex-NYPD detective Lew Croaker hunts the Kaisho's would-be assassins, Linnear infiltrates a vast web of terror, crossing the line that divides good from evil, sensuality from death, and love from betrayal.