A canister of the deadly Madoba-2 virus has gone missing from a Scottish medical research lab. On Christmas Eve, in a howling blizzard, several people with a keen interest in the virus converge on a remote family house.

Stanley Oxenford, the research company’s director, has everything riding on the drug he is developing to fight the virus. His grown children have their eyes on the money it will bring. Toni Gallo, the lab's security director, has her career in the balance; a local television reporter has sniffed the story, even if he has to bend the facts to tell it; and a violent trio of thugs is on its way to steal it for a client – though what the client has in mind will shock them all ...