Kosovo, 1999. In the shadow of an impending NATO bombing campaign, James Palatine of the Army Intelligence Corps has joined an elite unit of the SAS for his first mission behind enemy lines. A woman's desperate cry for help draws them to a remote farmhouse, where Palatine makes a split-second decision that he bitterly regrets. Just hours later he sees a chance to redeem himself-in his own eyes, at least-when his unit finds a young girl close to death in the freezing woods. But rescuing the girl proves only to be the beginning of a new nightmare. Against a backdrop of escalating violence, Palatine's life spirals into an underworld of predatory gangsters and duplicitous spies-and takes him on a journey deep into the horrors of war and the darkness within his own soul.
Little Sister has vanished. The prototype device-real name IPD400-has powers of surveillance that governments and terrorist organisations would kill for. They might yet.
James Palatine, a trained killer with a surplus of conscience, invented the device and is the only person who can operate it. He's determined to retrieve it, and so is Natalya Kocharian-the arms dealer who "inadvertently" sold the prototype to a rogue dealer. But the current owner, holed up in the scorching void of the Western Sahara, won't give in without a fight. Meanwhile MI6, fearing for their own reputation, will do anything to beat Palatine to the prize.
As the hunt for Little Sister goes from Whitehall errand to deadly international arms race, global security hangs in the balance. Knowledge is power, after all-and no secret is safe from Little Sister. With only Natalya on his side, can Palatine simultaneously take on his enemies, his demons and the dangerous power of his own invention?
