Jimmy McKee had seen a man burnt to death, a rigger crushed by a propeller, and an apprentice lose his left eye when a grinding wheel exploded in his face, all before his twenty-first birthday. But he didn't know that there were even more sinister ways to die on the waterfront...

Jimmy finds family and purpose as a welder at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, constructing boilers that power massive aircraft carriers at the same time the Navy mandates the use of a robotic welding process that guarantees to save money at the expense of shipyard jobs. But when the robotic welds fail during sea trials on the USS Saratoga, an influential Navy admiral blames the leaking boilers on human error and orders a tiger team of welders and boilermakers to make repairs at the ship's homeport in Florida. Just as the team is set to finish, four men are killed in a horrific accident.

Jimmy discovers that one of the dead men had information that proved the robotic welding process was scientifically flawed. He begins to look into Maestro Fusion, the company who pioneered the process, and uncovers a conspiracy that reaches the highest echelons of the Navy.