The pair are separated and imprisoned at The Shop headquarters, located in the fictional Washington, D.C. This time the operation is successful, and both Andy and Charlie are taken by The Shop. Rainbird, a Cherokee and a Vietnam veteran, is intrigued by Charlie's power and eventually becomes obsessed with her, determined to befriend her and eventually kill her. With the Manders farm operation disastrously botched, The Shop's director, Captain James 'Cap' Hollister, calls in a Shop hitman named John Rainbird to capture the fugitives.

With nowhere else to turn, the pair flees to Vermont and takes refuge in a cabin that had once belonged to Andy's grandfather. At Andy's instruction, Charlie unleashes her power, incinerating the entire farm and fending off the agents, killing a few of them. Using a combination of the push, Charlie's power, and hitchhiking, the pair escapes through Albany, New York and is taken in by a farmer named Irv Manders near the fictional town of Hastings Glen, NY however, they are tracked down by Shop agents, who attempt to kill Andy and take Charlie at the Manders farm. They move several times to avoid discovery before The Shop catches up to them in New York. Charlie and Andy flee, and begin a life of running and hiding, using assumed identities. He uses the push to incapacitate The Shop agents, leaving one blind and the other comatose. He then uses his push ability to track the trail of Charlie and The Shop agents, catching up to them at a rest stop on the Interstate. After years of Shop surveillance, a botched operation to take Charlie leaves her mother dead Andy, receiving a psychic flash while having lunch with colleagues, rushes home to discover his wife murdered and his daughter kidnapped. The novel begins in medias res with Charlie and Andy on the run from Shop agents in New York City, the latest in a series of attempts by The Shop to capture Andy and Charlie following a disastrous raid on the McGee family in suburban Ohio. Andy's and Vicky's powers were physiologically limited in his case, overuse of the push gives him crippling migraine headaches and minute brain hemorrhages, but their daughter Charlie developed frightening pyrokinetic ability. They both also developed telepathic abilities. The drug gave his future wife, Victoria Tomlinson, minor telekinetic abilities and him a telepathic form of mind control he refers to as 'the push'. During his college years, Andy had participated in a Shop experiment dealing with 'Lot 6', a drug with hallucinogenic effects similar to LSD. Andy and Charlene 'Charlie' McGee are a father/daughter pair on the run from a government agency known as The Shop.

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