The world economic system is on the point of collapse and the planet in peril from climate change, Jake, a top UK detective, is working on a serial, ritualistic murder case. Emma and Grace are attempting to rehabilitate themselves from disasters only to embrace another much more serious misadventure together, which could lead to their destruction. A Satanic group is exploiting the breakdown of social order, as a result of mass unemployment and a broken financial system in the UK, to recruit people to their cause and to develop anarchy and gang warfare in the streets. Jake is stumped in his investigation into ritual murders and calls upon the help of the Church's foremost exorcist, Paul Doolan, who warns him of rumours of the existence of a mighty Ipsissimus, called Ichiban, who is reputed to be planning a deadly master coup against humanity. Nobody has ever met Ichiban but rumours persist of his existence. He lives in Brazil and he has developed a long buffer zone, in the Amazon jungle, to prevent further encroachment by loggers and slash and burn farming corporations. The zone is managed in a sustainable and profitable way by large numbers of local inhabitants who perceive him as a great benefactor as, in this case in fact, he is. Ichiban moves from Brazil to the UK to deliver the killer stroke and the story races to its climax with Jake and the MI5 trying to understand the plot afoot and to stymie it before fruition.