When ants, displaying never-before-seen behavior, seize an island, the controversial Thorax Team is called to stop the massive threat only to discover that the ants are controlled by something beyond this world.

The Economist reporter Jack Elgin, a workaholic, takes his family on a working trip to India, where he is to interview the PM. But their US airplane is hijacked in Limassol (Cyprus) by the unknown August 15 terrorist movement, which ends up in a bloodbath. Jack can save his pre-teen son Andrew, literally in his arms, but his wife and daughter are among the slaughter victims. Western governments seem unwilling to go after the fiends, even hide the identity of a high-profile fatal victim. Although now a single father, Jack uses all his contacts and snooping skill to seek the truth himself. A London-based Serbian free newspaper editor sets him on the trail of four Balkanic killers, but is murdered. Jack decides to exact revenge himself, tipped-off by Sûreté-contact Dugay. Meanwhile US embassy official Davidson and FBI Special Agent Jules Bernard play a key part in the official, MI5-lead investigation, which ends up crossing Jack's path.

In 1947, noted Satanist Aleister Crowley dies. In Cambridge, 43 years later, with the help of a computer, Crowley's spirit takes over the body of Haddo, a mild-mannered, stuttering don. Over four days, as Crowley prepares for an occult extravaganza, bodies pile up, Crowley's elect engage in rites of passage, and Lia, a red-headed campus reporter, sniffs out a story that puts her in grave danger. Mathers, a scientist recently arrived from Cal Tech, may hold the key to her destiny.