On a bitter winter evening, during rush hour, a bomb explodes in a crowded train in the London underground. More than a hundred people are horrifically and senselessly slaughtered. In the absence of any terrorist claims come distressing unanswerable questions: Who planted the device? And why? A few hours later in a Mayfair flat a young prostitute is murdered and an enigmatic message written in blood is left in her room... It is addressed to Frank Pagan, counter-terrorist specialist, who has been shunted aside by the political infighting at Special Branch, but is now brought back from exile to investigate the most terrifying case of his career. Pagan, who moves in his own mysterious ways, who flaunts the rule-book and follows his own instincts, is plunged into a darkening puzzle more sinister than a bomb in an underground tunnel. He finds himself pitted against two old adversaries: the deranged terrorist Carlotta, a woman whose appetite for blood is matched only by Pagan's hunger for justice - and the ghost of Jig, his most famous antagonist, whose death has given birth to new demons.