Edgar Kellogg has always yearned to be popular. When he's offered the post of foreign correspondent in a Portuguese backwater that has sprouted a home-grown terrorist movement, Edgar recognises the disappeared larger-than-life reporter he's been sent to replace, Barrington Saddler, as exactly the outsize character he longs to emulate. Yet all is not as it appears. Os Soldados Ousados De Barba – 'The Daring Soldiers of Barba' – have been blowing up the rest of the world for years in order to win independence for such a dismal province. So why, with Barrington vanished, do terrorist incidents claimed by the SOB suddenly dry up?