As it turned out, Rick's Pacific Heights home was luxurious and convenient to everything Lucio needed. His agent lived only four blocks east in the same exclusive San Francisco neighborhood, much to the man's chagrin.

I will do everything in my power for you, as always, Sydney Frankel told him the last time they'd talked. But I am only human.

And the house was just a short trolley ride away from Lucio's friend and fellow photographer Piers Skaarsgard, who'd lent him his couch for weeks on end. It had been especially generous of Piers considering the fact that Piers's wife had died of leukemia just months before.

It's good to have another beating heart in the place again, Piers had said to Lucio his first night in the apartment. Stay as long as you'd like.

Lucio sighed. The rich and rewarding life he'd built for himself over twenty years was gone. It had collapsed'se derrumbothat was the only word he could use to describe it. Instantly, he'd gone from the peak of his success to piecing together a day-to-day existence.

Just months ago he was finishing an assignment in the northern deserts of China, chronicling the effect of pollution and climate change on the region's wildlife. He had finalized travel plans for his next assignment, to Galapagos. And he'd recently learned he'd won the prestigious Erskine Prize for achievement in nature photography. He began to make travel plans to be in New York in December for the ceremony, where he'd be handed a check for a quarter of a million in U.S. dollars.

And then it all came crashing down.

First, some of his raw digital video went missing. Soon after, the U.S. embassy in Beijing sent word that Lucio was in danger of being deported. The missing video had been leaked to the Chinese government, which found the images shameful, and in Lucio's opinion, they should have. At first, the Chinese claimed Lucio's work was hostile to the People's Republic.