Micah Dalton is a CIA "cleaner," a man paid to clean up sticky messes like the one left behind after his friend and colleague Porter Naumann is found dead in Tuscany, his throat torn out by his own hands. It turns out that Naumann has been the victim of a lethal hallucinogen administered by a vicious American Indian agent who seems to be leaving a trial of dead CIA operatives in his wake. While in Venice, Dalton gets a dose of the toxin himself, and though he survives, he suffers from visions and ghostly apparitions for the remainder of this gripping thriller.