Description: In 2015, the United States and China are locked in an informational arms race centered around the development of a quantum computer with codemaking and codebreaking powers such that the nation which first develops this master machine will have absolute dominance over all others in world affairs.
Researching centuries-old 'memory palace' forerunners of this system, NSA analyst Dr. Jaron Kwok appears to have spontaneously combusted in a hotel room not far from Hong Kong. Chinese policewoman Lu Mei-lin is brought in on the case, as is Kwok's understudy, Dr. Ben Cho. Trying to get at the truth of what actually happened to Jaron Kwok, Lu and Cho encounter a web of international intrigue involving the Chinese Ministry of State Security (Guoanbu), an alphabet-soup of turf-battling US security agencies - including the NSA, CIA, and FBI - as well as Chinese crime clans and Islamist revolutionaries.
Working behind these scenes is an even more shadowy group, the Tetragrammaton Project. Tetra's interests involve the future of all humanity and are far larger than issues of mere national securities or personal privacies. Opposing Tetra and its design for human history is the loose alliance of the Kitchener Foundation. Behind both of these, however, looms the most shadowy entity of all: the secret society of global intelligence operatives known only as the Instrumentality.