Mike Hammer is walking the city streets one cold winter night, meditating on what the judge had said during the recent case against him The footsteps closing up behind him turn out to be those of a terrified woman followed by a man Both die, and the only clue to their identities is a pair of green cards that each has This is the start of a case littered with bodies, a Communist plot to bring down the free world, a politician in whom everyone believes is the target of the 'commies', and some missing documents that could decide the fate of the nation and of the world