Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

Officer Jim Chee and Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn of the Navajo Tribal Police each independently becomes involved in a mystery that takes him from the American Southwest to Washington, DC. When the two join forces in the nation's capitol, they uncover a plot involving Navajo masks, priceless relics, a terrorist group and the Chilean embassy. The mystery is solved when the two detectives foil a bombing of the Smithsonian.

In chapter one, stylish Smithsonian lawyer Catherine Morris Perry returns to Washington, DC to find a large, ungainly brown package on her desk. Perry imperiously chides her receptionist-secretary Markie Bailey for leaving the box on her desk.

Conservator Henry Highhawk has been trying to get the museum to return skeletal remains of their ancestors to Native American tribes and aboriginal groups. Perry agrees with the museum board of directors that return and reburial...