After three children stumble on dumped radioactive waste in a Murmansk forest, one of them dies from radiation poisoning.
Outraged by such a tragic waste of a child's life, American doctor John Ross joins forces with a Typhoon class submarine captain (the father of one of the surviving children) and an undercover operative from the Russian Radiation Authority to hunt down those responsible.
This puts them on a collision course with a Russian Mafia boss and an Al-Qaeda agent determined to acquire nuclear material.
They find themselves entangled in a web of brutality, bribery and blackmail, where no one is who they seem and everyone is expendable ...