Jack Higgins is back so is Sean Dillon, a former IRA terrorist , in a complex story blending history, government secrets, duplicity, and murder. As Hong Kong prepares to be restored to China in 1997. The Mafia, which has invested billions in the city, will do anything to stop the lease from expiring. 

          In London, Brigadier Charles Ferguson, head of the prime minister’s personal action unit, has learned of the existence of a copy of the mysterious Chungking Covenant. This document, long thought lost, was signed in China in 1944 by Mao and by Lord Mountbatten on behalf of Winston Churchill. In return for arms and assistance in his war with the Japanese, Mao agreed to extend the Hong Kong Treaty by one hundred years if he ever came to power in China.