The action-packed sequel to Golden Serpent. On October 13, 2002, Australian spy Alan McQueen is told to head to Bali, where more than 200 people have been killed in a series of bomb blasts. Descending into Denpasar, Mac finds tensions running high between MI6, ASIS and the CIA, not to mention the Indonesian national police and Indonesian intel. Although the official line being peddled is that all the bombs were home-made, Mac learns that in fact one of the bombs was a military-grade mini-nuke. He pursues a shady group of businessmen-terrorists through the wilds of west Java and into Sumatra. But the trail goes dead when the terrorists fly out of Sumatra in an unmarked plane. Five years later, Mac is a freelance investigator living in Surfers Paradise. During an apparently routine assignment looking into the people behind an Indonesian bio-engineering facility, Mac's partner is shot and MI6 turn up rather too quickly. He suspects a connection between what's going on and the Bali bombings. Remembering back to a puzzling note he found back then with 'M4' written on it, he suddenly realises it referred to Mantiqui Four, the legendary Fourth Brigade of Jemaah Islamyiah, who are dedicated to an attack on Australian soil. The race is on as Mac discovers that the Fourth Brigade still have one remaining mini-nuke device.