Ten-year-old Russian piano prodigy, Alexis Koryavin, is completing his fifth year at the Institute for Gifted Children in Moscow, unaware that the school's hidden agenda is to train its students as espionage agents. General Petrov, former head of the KGB and current director of the Institute, has developed experimental tools of technology to help his students succeed in their future missions. When the general takes a personal interest in the boy's training, his renowned piano teacher, Nadia Rosenberg, hatches a dangerous plan to save Alexis by defecting to the United States.

In New York, as a new American citizen, he takes the name of Alex Courtland. Now a teenager, his extraordinary talent continues to open doors to America's cultural, political, and philanthropic elite, and Alex's reputation as the premiere pianist of his time is secured. He reunites with Abby, now a beautiful, savvy young woman who was his childhood best friend at the Institute. But Alex questions Abby's commitment to the their relationship when the overbearing influence of her father, the US ambassador to Russia, reveals a potential dark side in her ambitions.

As Cold War tensions increase between Russia and the United States, a series of explosive events unfolds centered around the mysterious deaths of prominent individuals who have attended Alex's performances. His suspicions of Abby's father and his connection to Petrov grow as he learns of a plot to kill him during a celebrated performance at the newly renovated Colosseum in Rome. The world's political, entertainment, and social elite gather there for what they expect to be the artistic performance of Alex's life-though it may be his death.