A judge’s harsh condemnation of Mike Hammer’s take-no-prisoners methods sends him on an introspective walk across a secluded bridge, ending in a way that could only happen to Hammer. When a terrified woman on the run from a gunman leaps off the side of the bridge, Hammer ends the would-be assassin’s life, but it’s too late for the dame. Now he’s got two bodies on his hands—and to find out why he’ll have to embroil himself in the darkest machinations of Cold War subterfuge.