The death of a French intelligence agent on an Air France flight to Amman, Jordan, is the trigger that launches Tommy Carmellini's latest adventure. Within the European Union, the national espionage agencies are fiercely competing for supremacy against each other - and against the CIA. When the Americans discover that the director of the French spy agency has secret investments in the Bank of Palestine, alarm bells go off. To investigate, the Americans send Jake Grafton, who has been brought back from retirement to unravel a tangle of espionage, terrorism and murder. And of course, the man Grafton wants on the point is Tommy Carmellini.

Together they uncover an elaborate strategy to infiltrate the highest levels of Al Qaeda with a top-level plant—but who is playing whom? As Carmellini delves deep undercover he finds he is running for his life. Grafton and Carmellini uncover a horrifying plan to shake the West as never before—and a catch 22: can they stop the conspiracy without compromising the intelligence source that could bring down Al Qaeda once and for all?