The Minister of Internal Affairs Plehve ordered Lykov to investigate the circumstances of the death of the scholar Mikhail Filippov. In summer 1903, Filippov announced his invention—an unprecedented weapon so destructive that wars with it would become pointless. The very next day after the news was published in a newspaper, the scientist was found dead. The doctors concluded he had died of natural causes—he had a sick heart.
Soon, however, counterintelligence intercepted a letter from the German resident stating that Filippov had been murdered, that the authorities knew nothing, and that the inventor’s papers were about to be sent to Berlin. How lucky will Lykov be this time? Will he be able to find the killers of the “death-ray” inventor? And can he manage to stay alive himself?