Special Operative Mitch Rapp faces an old foe bent on destabilising the Middle East in a ‘bloody, electrifying adventure’ (The Real Book Spy). In 2011, on a remote Iranian mountain, a group of high-level officials have just witnessed the successful demonstration of a new weapons system meant to upend the American-led war in Afghanistan by essentially decimating the population. The intelligence officer recognises what this development signifies even if his contemporaries do not. A fellow participant seems to agree with the intelligence officer’s reticence, remarking that he wished there was someone they could tell about this madness. But there is someone the intelligence officer can tell. One man who might just make a difference. In D.C., CIA Director Irene Kennedy presents the President with news that Bin Laden may have been found, but the President wants proof of Bin Laden's presence, and he only trusts one man to provide it. In Pakistan, Mitch Rapp encounters Azad Ashani, director of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the master spy who once functioned as Irene Kennedy’s back channel to the Iranian government. Ashani owes Rapp, and he intends to settle his debt by providing a piece of intelligence about an American special operations team in Afghanistan, about to interdict a high value target. However, Ashani knows the new Iranian weapons plan is a trap, and to stop it, he's willing to partner with only one man: Rapp.