In the late 1930s, convinced that the Nazis would annihilate all Europeans who challenged their belief in Aryan supremacy, Eduard Seventer uses his influential investment bank in Amsterdam to transfer Jewish refugee funds to safety in England and America.

The lightning-fast German invasion of the Netherlands in May of 1940 catches Seventer on a business trip in London, unable to return to his young wife in Amsterdam. Within days, the Germans complete their occupation of the country. The newly-arrived head of the Gestapo in Amsterdam, Heinrich Wanstumm, begins his search for enemies of the Reich. By 1942, he streamlines the deportation of Jews, and in their abandoned homes, he finds foreign bank statements for accounts which he knows the deportees will never return to claim.

At the end of the war, Seventer makes a terrible discovery, and vows to bring Wanstumm to justice. The Dutch authorities also begin their search for war criminals, with Wanstumm high on their list, but Wanstumm has vanished. Over time, the leads grow cold until Wanstumm's greed causes him to make a fatal mistake. The FBI, Scotland Yard, Interpol and French and Swiss police follow different and confusing tracks which converge - just when Seventer also picks up the scent of his quarry