Steven Adler had the world at his feet. A junior at Harvard, he had far surpassed the hopes and dreams of his working-class Oklahoma family. But all of that ends one foggy night while driving to Boston from New York when his best friend, Nick Calevetti -- the golden child of one of America's richest families -- commits a gruesome crime and maliciously points the finger at Steven. Allan Adler knows his son, and he knows he's innocent. Bereft of the money that could get Steven effective legal counsel, he embarks upon a desperate mission to save his son from a murder conviction -- an odyssey that will thrust him into the highest echelons of Washington politics. His weapon of choice: blackmail. Twenty years ago, Allan had been the chauffeur for a Pentagon official named Getty Fairfield and had been privy to Fairfield's affair with a sexy Russian spy. Now, as Fairfield becomes the president's choice for chief justice of the Supreme Court, Allan is determined to leverage his knowledge of the past to save his son's future. But other forces are at work -- specifically, two giant software corporations whose monopoly trial has come before the Supreme Court. And as they bribe, steal, murder, and manipulate their way into influencing the chief justice vacancy, Allan finds himself caught in a cross fire that could cost him much more than he'd bargained for.