2020: Russia has staggered from the ravages of civil war into a new era of mob corruption and despair. A tuberculosis epidemic has wiped out thousands and a mass emigration threatens the stability of the western world. In New York there is lawlessness and rioting. The only hope seems to be the forthcoming Presidential Election. Chief Inspector Constantin Vadim is seconded to a pro-Russian candidate whose wife has been threatened. As Rushton's campaign gathers pace, so too do the threats. Conspiracy within and without threaten to derail the one remaining hope for Russia as the campaign headquarters are stunned by a sequence of killings. Someone has been paid to silence some of Rushton's closest supporters, but why? And why does the killer use the execution techniques of the previous century to eliminate his victims?