Defence attorney Robert Stern can scarcely believe his eyes when he meets with the mysterious client who has summoned him to a godforsaken industrial park. To his astonishment, the defendant is a ten-year-old boy, a fragile child with a chronic illness who insists that he was a murderer in a former life. Robert Stern's surprise turns into horror when he searches the cellar described by Simon and finds a human skeleton whose skull has been split by an axe. But this is only the beginning. Simon tells him of other victims whose bodies have lain undiscovered for years. Suddenly, the present becomes murderously dangerous as well...

A journalist gets caught up in a terrorist plot in Moscow while investigating the Russian secret service.