The story begins in Iran, with a team of US soldiers finding the body of one of their own, identified as Joshua Duncan, killed with a bullet through his forehead. The next the reader sees, Dennett Norton is greeting a newly-awakened Joshua Duncan. Joshua sees what they've done to him and reacts badly; Norton instantly orders him to be shut down. Duncan is awakaned again, sedated, while Norton explains that his unit found him, but as an unfortunate side effect of his injury, most of his memory has been lost.