Returning from the horrors of Indo-China, Casca, alias Carl Langer, and his buddies in the French Foreign Legion, are pitched into another war, this time in Algeria. They soon find they are fighting yet another enemy who relies on guerrilla hit-and-run tactics and who will not shy away from butchering helpless civilians in their quest to wrest Algeria from French rule.
So in order to gain the upper hand, the French military decide to fight fire with fire and descend into equal brutality in a war where neither side will emerge with credit. To Carl and his unit, which includes Gus Beidemann and Dominic Ciardello, it means they will be at the forefront of a pitiless struggle that attracts the condemnation of the rest of the world.
But to those fighting for their lives at the forefront of the conflict, the opinion of the world matters little, and only a fight to win matters. And so Carl Langer embarks on a series of anti-terrorist actions that will earn him the Arabic name of al-Kattel, The Killer.