An attack upon a VIP makes Commander MacIntyre suggest a close-protection unit, and he is promptly asked to head it. Among the new recruits is Ian Worrell, a former pilot and police officer. The hard training almost breaks Ian, but he shows some talent, and at a big conference, his first duty shift takes place. But when the conference starts, experienced bodyguard Liz Shaw discovers a plot to kill her protectee. When Ian tries to help, things become really complicated.

New bodyguard Ian is paired with professional Liz again, as the anniversary of war veterans comes up. Soon after, Ian's wife and daughter are taken hostages, and Ian is blackmailed to allow the killing of one of the veterans to take place. But when Liz finds out about the situation, her duty seems clear.

During the visit of a high profile US citizen, Liz finds her competence questioned by the American bodyguards, and the whole unit becomes under scrutiny when security in the garage is compromised. But they have larger problems - a protester who has been making threats against the VIP, and someone else, with diplomatic contacts.

A British businessman is on the hitlist of some European hitmen, and Liz and Ian are assigned to protect him while he's in the UK. But when Liz and Ian leave the safe house for the night watch, the house is attacked, and only a coincidence prevented the businessman from being killed. It seems that whoever was behind the attack, had information from the inside.

Commander MacIntyre isn't particularly pleased when his old mentor, who defected to Russia several years ago, wants to come back to the UK to visit his daughter's grave. But his duty is clear. The problem is that the bodyguard unit soon finds evidence of a mole somewhere inside her Majesty's secret service, someone who desperately wants the defector dead.

Liz and Ian are assigned to protect a Salman Rushdie-like writer who is hated by fundamentalist Muslems. But the first attack comes before they have even got to the safe place in the highlands, still in their car, on top of a bridge. They jump from the bridge and flee into the woods, but the writer is badly hurt in the fall, and the fundamentalists are not far behind them.