Lenny is targeting the kingpin of judicial corruption, Richard Blakeney, to expose his network of bent policemen and corrupt judges.
Blakeney is everything Lenny hates, and his network is everything he wants to bring down.
Lenny briefs Mercer on his delicate strategy. It involves exploiting Blakeney's hitman Georgie, who Calum and Mercer are spying on.
Mercer returns to the council flat to hear Calum talk about marrying his girlfriend Manuela. Marrying her would guarantee indefinite leave for the Colombian. As if to complete the dysfunctional family, Rose appears for dinner.
Mercer can't help but be secretly pleased she has come. At the end of the night, under the guise of returning her scarf, John goes to her house. He is in for a shock.
John arrives and sees her dressed up to go out and kissing Georgie in her doorway. Mercer retreats once more behind his emotional barricades.
Mercer confronts Lenny, demanding more information than they have been given.
As crime ravages Britain with daily news of shootings, gangs out of control and rumours of corruption within the establishment and the police seemingly losing the battle, who can bring order?
John Mercer is a former member of the Special Forces serving a double life sentence. He is released from prison unexpectedly early and introduced to the shadowy Lenny Douglas, a police officer retired on grounds of ill health. Mercer realises his newfound freedom comes at a price. Douglas pulls together an unofficial operation with a single brief - to remove untouchable criminals from society. Mercer must use the skills he learned in the Special Forces to execute a series of discreet hits.
To help him complete each mission, Mercer is introduced to his new colleagues who include Calum McKenzie, a petty thief whose main interests are girls, drugs and music. Things are complicated by the final member of Douglas's group - the sharp tongued but seductive Rose, an ex-copper forced out of the police by scandal, she has always used her sexuality as her primary weapon and is more than a match for Mercer. The gang operates outside the parameters of the law and is at odds with the world but when it comes to fulfilling its mission it is lethally effective.