Found in a cave in China, the Peking Man is more than half-a-million years old. It is December 1941 and the Americans and Japanese both want him, but thieves vanish with him into a world disrupted by war. They are soon hunted by an honor bound Japanese military officer, Peking's premier heroin chemist, CIA operatives and the ageless elusive servant of Mao, the ghostlike Ch'en.