In early 2002, six months after the World Trade Center attack, Hayden Stone who took early retirement from the FBI, is working for the CIA. On his last assignment to Afghanistan a colleague is killed and Stone blames himself for his death. A friend in the upper ranks of the CIA offers him an assignment to the South of France. Stone accepts, thinking this is exactly what he needs to get his life back on an even keel: French life on the Côte d’Azur. Well, he’s in for a surprise. He has little time for the Mediterranean ambiance, as two terrorists, acting separately, attempt to murder him. Meantime, Stone meets an old love, a contessa, whom he had seduced and abandoned years before.

Through a series of setups and encounters, Stone learns that a brutal Middle Eastern terrorist is in Provence to deliver a strain of the Ebola virus to major U.S. cities. At the same time, the CIA and French intelligence have targeted a seriously ill al Qaeda functionary who is seeking medical attention in Nice. Complicating matters still, a Saudi prince and his son-in-law on a yacht off Villefranche are assisting this al Qaeda figure. They lease the contessa’s palace so that, without her knowledge, doctors can administer to the functionary. Stone romances the contessa who loves him, but doesn’t trust him and with cause, for he also has become fond of a young French researcher, who secretly works for French Intelligence.

Stone certainly has his hands full.