Off the coast of Maine, an esteemed former CIA director is found dead on his sailboat, his head bashed in. Half a world away in Paris, another senior CIA officer dies of a heart attack while making love in a posh hotel room. When counterspy Alex Hawke hears the news, he believes the deaths can be tied to one source: Spider Payne, a rogue intelligence officer whose exploits got him fired by the CIA. Now the former star agent seems to have evolved into a serial killer—and MI6 officer Alex Hawke is directly in his line of fire.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin is determined to forge his country into a formidable superpower once more, and he’ll stop at nothing to realize his global fantasies. Meanwhile, Kremlin scientists are developing a radical new weapon that could forever alter modern warfare. NATO knows Putin will not hesitate to use it. But they feel powerless while they’re locked in a tense standoff as Russian Army forces are arrayed on Eastern Europe’s borders. Only one man can bring the world back from this apocalyptic brink: Alex Hawke.