"Alex King is unstoppable, a force to be reckoned with...." (Stephen Leather, Sunday Telegraph best-selling author)

Timeline: 20 years ago.

A delegation of OPEC executives and intelligence operatives working deep undercover are taken hostage in Angola and moved across the border into the Congo. The region is recovering from 30 years of civil and tribal war, and international oil contracts are up for grabs, but only if the area can be deemed stable. The standoff must be ended quickly, but the newly appointed Angolan government will not grant Britain permission to deploy the SAS and has charged the woefully under-skilled defense force with rescuing the hostages.

Alex King has much to prove. His first mission to halt a coup by a splinter cell of the IRA and London criminals was deemed a failure, and his mentor Peter Stewart is having second thoughts about training him for the field. The brief is simple: Avoid an international incident, and bring home the hostages. The reality is altogether more deadly.

A small force of mercenaries led by Stewart and King must cross into the Congo and take on the Southside Boys - a gang of tribal rebels and boy soldiers, high on drugs and violence, who have made kidnapping, rape, and murder their way of life.