For Frank Pagan of Scotland Yard, it begins with the daylight murder of a Russian at crowded Waverley Station, Edinburgh, Scotland. From that moment on, Pagan's life becomes an ever-darkening nightmare, as he follows the thread of a brutal murder everyone wants to forget. With the help of Kristina Vaska, a beautiful and mysterious Estonian with a score to settle, Pagan makes an incrdible discovery: a terrifying international plot that extends into circles of power from Washington to Moscow, from Eastern Europe to the deathbed of a KGB mastermind. Now, Pagan knows too much. Now, he is trapped in a coplex web of intrigue, treachery and murder. Now, suddenly he is running for his life from an unknown assassin, racing against time to destroy a staggering worldwide conspiracy of evil that began because of a single word: glasnost.