1983 In scenes similar to the great depression, unemployment stands at a record high in Britain. The Brinks Mat robbers steal 26 million in gold from a warehouse at Heathrow Airport and DI Jack Castle of the Met's Robbery Squad has unwittingly assisted the escape of an armed assassin.
On the 9th of February, a prominent Arab businessman suddenly cashed in all his oil wells on the third floor of the Wellesley Clinic, St John's Wood, London when a full clip of ammunition from a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun was emptied into him.
The MP5 had taken off most of the businessman's head and right shoulder and reworked the bed headboard and the floor and walls of the room into something akin to a Jackson Pollock painting.
He was the fourth victim in as many weeks.
DI Jack Castle is put on the case and sent to investigate a group of mysterious murders among the rich and powerful of Knightsbridge and the affluent inhabitants of the French Riviera.
At first sight, it appears that these leading Arab oil sheikhs and business entrepreneurs have been murdered to warn others of their kind to pay over multi-million-dollar blackmail sums to stay alive. But all is not as it appears...