The smoldering corpse of an Asian girl found outside the Chinese consul general's apartment leads the detectives to believe she had made a political statement. When forensics shows that she had been murdered beforehand, they find themselves in the middle of a religious conflict with the consul general their prime suspect and his attorney an old friend of District Attorney Branch.

McCoy faces an uphill battle in proving that witnesses to the murder of a drug mule were bribed, intimidated, and eventually murdered on the orders of the drug dealer accused of the crime.