A death on the London Underground leads to the discovery in the dead man's bag of a severed human hand. Clutched in it is a note, warning the female journalist to whom it's addressed: 'you need to back off, so let us give you a hand.' When the journalist disappears, her editor enlists her ex-boyfriend - a former soldier and journalist, still suffering from his physical and mental wounds - to help find her and protect her. And so begins a race against time, from London to the Persian Gulf to the Philippines, to find her before the powerful men with fortunes and reputations to lose can reach her - and silence her - first.