THE RED HAND August 1989, Belfast, Northern Ireland: A bomb explodes and a new wave of terror spreads from Belfast to the streets of London, ravaging the very heart of the British Lion itself.When Britain's First Sea Lord of the Admiralty and Victoria Scott, Matt Berkeley's love interest from the past, are brutally abducted, Berkeley, former U.S. Navy Special Warfare officer, finds himself unevenly matched against the Red Hand, an Active Service Unit of the IRA. Its name drawn from the ancient crest of the O'Neill chieftains, the Red Hand's creed identifies itself as, "The first to strike blood for its people; the first to shed blood for its cause." Confronted with what the people of Northern Ireland call, "an acceptable level of violence," Berkeley is caught in a tug of war between two diametrically opposed societies.