Wong Dai, the world's most powerful Chinese drug kingpin, is sitting at a long table in an old building in Paris, France, going through the motions of a gigantic merger between himself and several other major Chinese drug dealers. Sai Lo controls shipments in the French heroin market in Paris, using laundromats all over Paris as a front. Tang "The Bird" Zhili controls the entire New York drug conglomerate from the Chinatown section of New York, and runs Mahjong gambling rackets. Yin Quinshi of Sofia, Bulgaria, controls an Eastern European drug cartel. Li Bo controls drug exports in Shang Hai, China, and has a penchant for French restaurants. Fang "The Barber" Lee controls a Paris drug cartel, and he is known to hire unique assassins. And Mr. Chang controls drug money in London, England. Yale University archeology professor Robert Burns, who has just recently won the prestigious and much-coveted Winthrop Award for excellence in archeology, stumbles onto the fact that his expedition to China, near the China/Kazakhstan border, is being used by Wong Dai as a cover for a drug smuggling operation. Realizing the danger of sticking around, Burns and his assistant, Luo Yi, make a run for it, but in the resulting gunfight and chase, Luo Yi is killed, and when Burns reaches the border, he finds that Wong's smugglers have set him up for smuggling the drugs. Burns lands in a Chinese prison, framed for drug-running. Burns is questioned by beautiful Chinese narcotics cop Tommie Ling and surly DEA agent Ed Gray, who want to release him and use him as bait to nail the smugglers. Burns is quickly released and sent to the USA, where he promises Luo Yi's father Luo Dazhong that he will get revenge for Luo Yi's murder, but Wong Dai is not done with Burns yet. Wong Dai sends hit men to Burns's house in New Haven, Connecticut to plant a bomb in Burns's house, which explodes and kills Burns's wife Maya. With the two people closest to him dead at the hands of Wong Dai and his minions, and with Tommie and Gray shadowing his every move, Burns is out for revenge. As it turns out, Burns was not always a Professor. He was once a master thief of Chinese artifacts, who served time in prison and earned his archeology degree while in prison, and he changed his name and married Maya after he was released. With his determination to exterminate those who killed Maya, Burns tells Tommie and Gray to stay out of his way, as he cuts a bloody path through Chinatown and across Europe on his way to a confrontation with Wong Dai.
