When a notorious underworld figure, Carlo Franconi, is gunned down, his body is snatched from the city morgue before it can be autopsied. A few days later, a "floater" appears on Dr. Jack Stapleton's autopsy table -- missing its head, hands, feet and liver. With the help of Dr. Laurie Montgomery, Jack IDs the body as that of Carlo Franconi. Was the triggerman who killed him the same person who later dismembered him? Jack and Laurie's search leads them to equatorial Africa where they discover a sinister cabal whose stock-in-trade involves surgical procedures a step beyond current medical technology and a leap beyond accepted medical ethics.