Richard Forthrast is attending a family reunion at his family house when he meets the adoptive daughter of his late sister, Zula, and offers her a position at his gaming company, Corporation 9252. Richard had started as a hunting guide who discovered a smuggling route on one of his trips and decided it to use it to smuggle marijuana. Discovering the business of virtual gold in multi-player games, he created a laundering operation and eventually founded a gaming company with the idea to make the laundering legal.
Zula discovers that her boyfriend, Peter, stole a financial database to Russian mafia via a middleman Wallace, and breaks up with him. Wallace finds that the drive used to transfer the DB contained a ransomware, Reamde, which rendered it encrypted. The Russian mobster Ivanov and his security consultant Sokolov has Wallace killed and transports Zula and Peter to China to get the man who created the ransomware. Sokolov begins to suspect that Ivanov is suffering from a mental breakdown.
While pursuing the Chinese hacker who created the virus, they run into Islamic terrorists after Zula provides incorrect information to the Russians in a bid to save more people from getting hurt. The Russians enter a wrong apartment, where a number of Al-Qaeda terrorists are residing, making bombs and preparing to attack an international event taking place there. A gun battle starts, Ivanov kills Peter, and Abdullah Jones, the leader of the terrorists kills Ivanov and takes Zula is taken as a hostage. Sukolov manages to get away from the explosions and runs into Olivia, an English-Chinese Mi6 spy who had been following Jones.
Zula kills Khalid as he tried to rape her. Cosongor, Marlon and Zuxia are left stranded in a boat after trying to follow Abdallah. Olivia tries to help Sokolov escape but learns that she has been fooled into leading him into an ambush and is heart-broken.
Abdallah kills the pilots after he crashes the plan in a tree in a British Columbia. They take refuge in some abandoned mines and kill more people to take their vehicles traveling around. Olivia contacts Richard after her efforts to find Abdallah fails. Richard finds Zula’s letter that she left in Xiamen and realizes she has been kidnapped. Csongor and the rest manage to reach Philippines after hijacking another boat and try to get the money Marlon had collected at the Torgai foothills in T’rain.
Meanwhile, Richard is involved in a tussle of power among his peers at his company. He is contacted by a janitor from Xiamen who discovered Zula’s letters that she stowed in a pipe while cleaning, and he learns that Zula has been kidnapped. As he is about to leave for Xiamen, he is contacted by Olivia who tells him of the involvement of Jones. Finally, Richard is contacted by Jones who asks Richard for helping them cross the border as a trade-off to let Zula go.
Sokolov enters US off a boat from Manila, and contacts Igor who was one of the people who ransacked Peter’s apartment. Olivia discovers this using her FBI contacts and jeopardizes the operation to catch Peter and Zula’s kidnappers by alerting Sokolov and taking him to cross border to Canada. Csongor, Marlon and Zuxia meet Seamus, who is sent by Olivia to check on them and they are then illegally flown to US using Marlon’s ransomware money to escape persecution from Chinese authorities.
While Richard is navigating Jones across border, Zula escapes by spreading food trash around their tents which lead to animals attacking their camp. She leaves in the confusion but is soon surrounded by them, at which point she sets fire to Richard’s tavern alerting Chet. Chet comes on a bike and gets shot at, but helps Zula navigate the path to get away from the terrorists.
Sokolov realizes Jones might be crossing the border to the US as news of an explosion at a toll booth comes in., and he and Olivia start for Jake Forthrast’s house which was an end to the smugglers’ hike. Richard is able to escape Jones and his gang after Zula follows them and helps him. They split, so Richard could go back to check on Chet and Zula could go to warn her uncle Jake and his family living at the end of the hike. Richard meets Chet, who dies soon, and is found by Marlon and others who had come to save Zula.
They all arrive at Jake’s house and a gunfight ensues in which John Forthrast is killed by Jones, who is also killed later by Richard. The terrorists are stopped by Sokolov and Olivia, who get together at the end of the book as well as Csongor and Zula and Seamus and Zuxia.
