Deed's involvement in the case of a far-right British National Party councilor brings him to the notice of terrorists who decide to send a woman to kill him. When the assassin meets Deed, she has a surprise in store, but she still plans to carry out her orders.

Meanwhile, The Lord Chancellor sends Deed to sit on an International Tribunal in the Hague, as the British government sees him as a mischief maker at home. Deed finds himself judging the case of a British soldier accused of war crimes by killing eleven Iraqi civilians.

Continuing the story of a war crimes trial in The Hague. Deed finds the defendant is a victim of the British government's attempts to develop an exit strategy out of the continuing occupation of Iraq by western forces, and he has to balance the interests of justice against the possibility of saving British lives.