When two young women in France of 1790 discover the Montglane Chess set in Montglane Abbey, their Abbess recognizes its mystic ability to provide anyone playing it with unlimited power. Seeing the game as too powerful, she desperately scatters its pieces around the world. But in 1972, computer expert Catherine "Cat" Velis is hired to recover the pieces of the inordinately valuable chess set that has been missing for years. She then finds herself caught up in a nefarious, globe-spanning conspiracy.