In Afghanistan, a CIA drone kills British secret servicewoman FX/53, Marcie Brown, posing as the third wife of one of ISAF's most trusted operatives. Or at least, that's what the official report states. Deep inside enemy territory, what remains of her body is deemed irrecoverable. Seven thousand miles away, in Britain, her grieving husband, MI7 Officer Nicholas Fleming, joins a police investigation which stumbles onto an Islamist plot to bomb central London. Handed responsibility for the counter-terrorism initiative, he uncovers evidence that one of the bombers is Marcie. By degrees, the utterly unbelievable becomes plausible and, at last, undeniable. Questions such as what really happened to her become academic as love and duty are rendered incompatible. To save the lives of hundreds of innocent people, Fleming must order the destruction of the only woman he has ever loved. To make matters worse, there is evidence that she is slowly recovering her memory ...