This is the story of Martin McGregor. Martin, and his friend Davey Collins, left school in Glasgow with nothing but a love of computers. With no apparent future, they get a lucky break when they fix the computer of a schoolfriend's father - Ken Talbot - and he sets them up is a small computer repair shop. Over the years they build the company up, and expand to become a major software business. They have to cope with personal tragedies along the way, but they keep going.
Then Martin finds out the truth behind it all; his benefactor is a Glasgow gangster, and the original business was a money-laundering operation. The new business is a front for cyber-crime, stealing credit card details from customers.
Martin wants out, and he's given the opportunity - but only after visiting Romania to help gangsters there set up a similar operation. This trip turns to disaster. Martin's relationship founders, and he ends up being pursued by the Romanian police as well as the gangsters.
He goes on the run, aware that the Scottish police are after him too. He doesn't know that the FBI are also on his tail, in the belief that he is an international cyber-criminal and an assassin.
In an Orkney hotel, alone, he reflects on his life and wonders how he can escape.