Sergeant Alex Houston is assigned to investigate the mysterious theft of sensitive documents from an Ottawa embassy. Mysterious, because robbery should have been impossible given the locked safe and the embassy's tight security. When Alex learns of another seemingly impossible robbery involving safe-cracking, and at the house of a foreign diplomat, she begins to suspect a connection to a local magician. As she investigates further, things become complicated with international overtones involving a European criminal group, the CIA, Día de la Independencia (Independence Day) celebrations, and the threat of impending war in Central America.