Liz McGuane has lived 18 of her 23 years under an assumed name after her parents were murdered and she was rescued by her Uncle Andrew, a CIA agent. Although living a sheltered life in Maine, over the years Drew has taught her survival tactics whenever he visited. He has always stressed the point that the killers may still be after Liz since a quirk of fate kept her from accompanying her parents in a rowboat that fateful day. One night Drew calls Liz to warn her away from the CIA and the lake where her parents died. During the conversation, Drew is fatally shot before he can explain further and Liz is forced to play a cat and mouse game with both the CIA and Soviet illegals. An undecipherable list of names and numbers comes to light after Drew's funeral and Liz is forced to run for her life, back to Woodcock Lake where it all began.