After his first failure to secure the release of a live hostage, kidnap negotiator Dominic King returns from South America to England and is surprised to find his teen-aged daughter has found religion. His business partner Angela sends him to Cape Town where Naomi Shaffer, a botanist working for a pharmaceuticals firm, has been snatched by two local men. King assumes that they are opportunistic amateurs, working alone and is successful in halving their ransom request to a million dollars. A hand-over goes ahead but is ambushed by a group of masked men who escape with ...

Having shot and killed the original kidnappers interlopers take Naomi to a new hideout where she meets urbane, sinister Alexander Willard. King and his assistant Carrie meet local police inspector Lanning, who tells them that one of the dead men was a security guard at Naomi's firm, which is presumably how she was targeted. King negotiates with Willard and Naomi is released safely for four hundred thousand pounds, though King is surprised that a professional abductor agreed to such a comparatively low sum. His suspicions are confirmed when Naomi's little girl Sally is...

Recalled to help the Shaffers after Sally's abduction, King learns what the kidnappers are really after. Naomi's husband Philip has created a valuable new anti-obesity drug, worth millions and they want it. Bringing in the British police King goes for an exchange using a fake formula but Willard is ahead of him and Sally is not delivered until Philip has created the real thing. After visiting his daughter in a religious commune King goes it alone, rescuing Sally. But who is the enemy in the camp who started the whole idea of the abductions?