When an SIS Operative is killed in a London restaurant shootout, police initially suspect no more than a robbery with drug gangster overtones. But it soon becomes apparent that one of the corpses has more than one name, and a previous misdemeanour was covered from within the depths of Britain's Secret Services. As British Council offices in Pakistan and then Russia are attacked by suicide bombers, it soon becomes apparent that there is a link between an apparently ordinary working lunch and world terrorism. Talal Asir, the banker who financially backed almost every known terrorist organisation, and Ali Mohammed Khalef, the bagman who had distributed the monies on his behalf were two of the most dangerous men in the Middle East. How can Peter Ashton and his colleagues track down and eliminate them?