Richard Paladin works in the shadows eliminating terrorists, spies, and just general riff-raff who threaten the security of the United States. At least, he assumed that's who he'd be killing when he was hired into a secret department of the Environmental Protection Agency. But when one of his "clients" turns out to be a seemingly harmless Missouri housewife, then he's ordered to eliminate the owner of the local northern Virginia bar he frequents, he starts to ask himself a few questions—like what any of this has to do with the U.S. Government's reluctance to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Still, if he can run the gauntlet of spies and goons who keep cropping up unexpectedly, he might just be able to hold onto his job and keep doing what he loves—arranging fatal accidents and suicides. Because Richard Paladin hasn't got a clue what he would do for a living if he loses his job as a government killer.

When terrorists threaten the U.S. power grid, it's time to send in Richard Paladin, America's top Environmental Protection Agent. At least, that's how Paladin's new boss, Frank, describes the assignment. But when Paladin starts digging through the personnel files at a Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant, he finds a lot more than the EPA bargained for—like a partner who's not playing straight with him, a security guard who appears more spook than goon, a stripper who's a little too interested in him, and an old flame he knows is a professional agent. And even though someone really is leaking security information about the plant, his fellow government thugs are more concerned with something else, something that smells a whole lot like corruption on a congressional scale. But Paladin's in Pennsylvania to do a job, and despite the distractions of temptresses and thugs, he damned sure plans to find the leak—and plug it.

A logging company's employees have been turning up mysteriously dead. Terrorist tree-huggers seem the likeliest culprits, and when what's at stake is a contract to fell a national forest in Oregon—and the President of the United States just happens to be good friends with that company's CEO—it's time to send in Richard Paladin, America's top Environmental Protection Agent. But Paladin may just face his toughest challenge yet, because his adversary displays all the talents of a professional killer. Add a haunted wood into the mix, and it's an assignment Paladin may need all his luck to survive.