When Professor Rupert Scott refuses to accept an unexpected funding offer from Waleed Alghamdi, a Saudi diplomat with links to the richest oil producers in the world, things quickly turn nasty. The offer of huge funding is dependent on Scott abandoning his work to develop new applications for his late friend Mr Sato’s super conductivity discovery- work which will help the world breaks its addiction to oil. Instead Alghamdi wants Rupert to adopt an ‘oil friendly’ research programme funded by a shadowy group of superrich Saudi oil men whose wealth means they believe they have no use for the rules by which everyone else must live.
With the professor refusing to cooperate they decide to increase their leverage by kidnapping Rupert’s fiancé Helen Childs. When Helen goes missing enroute to Cambridge Rupert is desperate and turns to Helen’s brother police commissioner Tom Childs. Although Tom shares Rupert’s concern, he admits that Alghamdi’s diplomatic status means officially his hands are tied. With Helen missing and no idea what happened, Professor Scott turns to Tuk Kae and she flies to England to help find her friend.
The quest to find and save Helen starts in Cambridge then shifts to Italy and finally to a mafia stronghold in the remote Sicilian mountain town of Gangi. Here Helen is being held in a remote mountain top property guarded by Giuseppe - a giant of a man who has a rare genetic condition which means he feels no pain. Giuseppe is fiercely loyal to his mafia boss who is working with Alghamdi and his group of oil producers and would die before failing his Don.
Tuk Kae is faced with the challenge of locating Helen and then wresting her from the clutches of someone who she can’t hurt and who won’t back down.
