In 1912, John Wade and his brother, William --- children of the American consul --- were kidnapped off the street in Chungking, China, and raised in the house of Eunuch Chang, the city’s master criminal. Twenty-five years later, John is the eunuch’s most valuable ward, a trained assassin and swindler, and William has become a talented forger. On the brink of World War II, China is in chaos. When William betrays Eunuch Chang and escapes to central China, a place of ferocious warlords and bandits, John begins a desperate search to save his brother, while Eunuch Chang hunts them both.