Mustapha al Yaffi had murdered Scott's parents and sister, apparently by accident when the internationally feared assassin had targeted some diplomats in a hotel. But when Scott retires from the Royal Air Force as a helicopter pilot, he is offered the chance to join the Mongoose Section, a British anti-terrorist group charged with protecting VIPs and hunting down just the sort of assassins as al-Yaffi. Scott leaps at the opportunity. But as he seeks out the terrorist all over the globe, his world is turned upside down as everything he thought he knew about his friends, his target, his origins, even the real nature of his family turn out to be nothing that he could ever have imagined. In the end, he is faced with a decision that nobody should ever have to make.