Dorothy and Rolland marry and return to Canada where he opens an office in Toronto as an independent white-collar crime investigator. After two years with little success, the Universal World Bank of Canada hires him as a personal bodyguard to the CEO, Malcolm Stanley, who is a collector of Chinese artifacts. Stanley owns an exquisite inlaid ivory table, a unique and priceless artifact that becomes the symbol of the search.
Stanley sends Royce to interview Dr. Chang Cee Hung at the University of Taipei. Royce learns the Chinese brainwashed Wang and his wife in a Laogai prison and sent them to Canada on an unknown mission with new names and features making them impossible to identify. Stanley is strangely silent when Royce reports that it is impossible to strip away the feathers and find the naked jaybird.
Canadian professional hockey teams leaving Canada for American cities becomes a political issue between the Prime Minister, Harold Young, and Malcolm Stanley and suggests a strained relationship between them that Royce cannot understand.
Royce teams with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a Chinese attorney, Jay Birdsong, intent on uncovering the intertwined alliance between Malcolm Stanley, Harold Young and the exotic table. He comes to the realization his true objective is to uncover Wang and the mystery of the table is a diversion. The Chinese frame him for the murder of Doctor Chang and the Prime Minister accuses him of subversion. In the face of the danger to his family, he retreats to England only to return with renewed determination to uncover the strange association between these people. Rosenauer, Birdsong and the R.C.M.P. steer him towards the answer. He stumbles on to the solution, discovers a surprising relationship between Stanley and Young and recognizes the truth about himself.
