Terrorists and bombings are an old story to the police and the politicians; Nguyen is just a bothersome "Chinaman" demanding justice from a system he does not understand. But Ian Wood, a journalist whose trench coat smells of smoke and whiskey, sees the obdurate Nguyen as the key to the big story he so urgently needs. Wood gives him the name of a suspected terrorist leader, the entry to a treacherous world the Chinaman understands all too well.
Belfast lawyer Liam Hennessy looks like a rugby player gone to seed. But he is one of the most powerful men in a terrorist network so out of control that even he does not know who is behind the bombs that are ravaging London. When the Chinaman appears in his office he cannot answer Nguyen's demands for the names of his family's assassins--and dismisses his threats. Undaunted, Nguyen unleashes a harrowing campaign of violence at Hennessy's Irish countryside farm.
As the brutal bombings continue in London, a desperate Hennessy orders his most trusted aid to make a secret deal with the British that may yield the terrorists' identities. He also sends his beautiful, passionate wife, Mary, to the safety of London--and straight into her lover's arms.