Burdened by a traumatic past, and after serving time in a military prison for a dishonorable crime, former Canadian Army recon officer John Burke is given a second chance to redeem himself by Canada's counter-intelligence apparatus in Ottawa.

Burke's new superior immediately assigns him to West Africa to aid their NATO allies in disrupting an Al Qaeda arms deal, and to hunt down the Ares Syndicate, the shadowy trafficking network behind it, anonymous criminals whose ruthless ambition takes a turn for the worse when their newest, exclusive weapons-grade chemical Crimson Zero could theoretically open the floodgates to uncontrolled nuclear proliferation in the heated post-9/11 world.

With Burke forming a tenable alliance with CIA officer Jill Pearce and British MI6 operative Billy Styles along the way, the investigation will lead Burke and his new compatriots from Athens to London to Ottawa to the Costa Dorada in Spain, bringing them ever deeper into the wilderness where the line between right and wrong is increasingly blurred and the likelihood of a deadly leak in their network becomes more certain with every turn of fortune.