What should have been a routine arrest turns into a bloody shoot-out near Geneva that leaves four terrorists and four policeman dead, and Richter on the run from a murder charge. Closer to home, an old tramp is viciously murdered on the Isle of Sheppey. Then a surveillance operation in Stuttgart goes badly wrong when someone tips off the terrorists that the police are closing in.

As Richter looks for some connection between these widely separated events, he discovers a diabolical plot intended to devastate the City of London and leave thousands dead. A plot that will combine the world's largest ever non-nuclear explosion with the power of the sea to deadly effect.

As the tension mounts, Richter finds himself pitted against both a vicious and highly experienced professional terrorist and a ruthless gang of international criminals. But the identity of the mastermind comes as a shock to everyone.