Eve of 1990. Military policeman Jack Reacher is unexpectedly transferred from Panama, where he participated in the operation to capture dictator Noriega, to the quiet office of an American military base in North Carolina. Reacher frankly suffers from idleness, until on New Year's Eve he receives a message that a dead general has been found in a local motel. Death from a heart attack prevented him from carrying out some top-secret mission. When Reacher arrives at the General's house to inform his wife of the tragedy, he discovers that the woman has been killed. The general's briefcase has disappeared, and Reacher suspects that the papers contained in it were the reason for the murder.