It’s seven days to Christmas, and the world awakes to find itself in the grip of a computer virus of terrifying power. The BBC is contacted with a list of terrorist demands. Unless the demands are met, the virus will continue to degrade all mainstream computers until, by noon on Christmas Day, they are utterly useless. Their demands? The BBC must stage the "Trials of the West".
Under the twin pressures of the virus and the searing examination of the Trials, the West starts to slip into chaos, and the black flags of revolution fly high over the burning streets. Security services are caught in a deadly race against time as they desperately hunt down the author of the virus before it is too late and Christmas comes. The chase leads from the Western Isles of Scotland, to Dubai and Venice, before it leads finally to the City of the Infidels. There an assaassin is poised, ready to launch a deadly attack at the very core of the West, and to trigger the Final War which is to come.
