After recently graduating from college, Pamela Graham, heir to the Graham publishing empire, sets off to fulfill a humanitarian goal of volunteering at a Russian orphanage. When Pamela impulsively takes one of the children out of the country to avoid an otherwise grim future, she inadvertently sets in motion a series of dark events. While evading the Russian authorities by flying to Spain, she meets a biologist from Maryland who reveals a sinister American government conspiracy. This knowledge takes her on a time-sensitive race to survive long enough to expose the truth before the clock runs out for a vast number of unsuspecting victims.