It's just another meeting for Los Angeles real estate developer Meyer Muscatel. Unfortunately Muscatel meets with Iouri Mikhel, a Russian immigrant with murderous intent. A week later, Muscatel's body is found floating in a northern California lake. Mikhel masterminds a kidnap-for-ransom scheme, and he and his crew kill and dump four more victims. With a storyline that includes a bank account in Abu Dhabi and a mysterious Moscow middleman, the case is solved by FBI agents Louis Perez and Jim Davidson and prosecuted by Assistant US Attorney Robert Dugdale. Mikhel and his co-conspirator Jurijus Kadamovas are convicted of five cold-blooded, ruthless murders and, in 2007, are sentenced to death.