Twelve-year-old Florian Bates is a seventh grader at Alice Deal Middle School in Washington, DC. He also is a covert asset for the FBI because he notices things that others do not. To avoid the rain, Florian takes a shortcut behind the Safeway, ignoring the warning of his best friend Margaret that the route is not safe. A large Romanian man in a florist van is waiting for him. He knocks Florian unconscious.

Florian regains consciousness in the back of the van. He is relieved to see that he still has his backpack, as it contains a panic button disguised as an inhaler. He remembers his FBI training and uses his knowledge to build rapport with his captor. When he says the one phrase he knows in Romanian—“My hovercraft is full of monkeys” (9), his captor laughs. Florian is brought to a farmhouse, where he meets the famous gangster Nicolae Nevrescu: the main suspect in Florian’s current case. Florian tricks his captors into letting him use his inhaler, but when he sees a daisy tattoo on Nevrescu’s arm, he realizes that the FBI have been investigating the wrong man.