Fred Staub, captain of the Zurich Canton police, is faced with an unusually brutal series of murders: within a short period of time the corpses of three Swiss trustees are found – and all of them are missing their heads. Puzzling orange-coloured graffiti is conspicuous at all the scenes of the crimes, but the investigators are not able to reveal its meaning. They do, however, soon discover that the deceased were involved in extremely dubious business deals with one another, and had done a majority of their mutual clients out of a great deal of money. An additional financial acrobat who belongs to the group of murdered men turns up – and he still has his head firmly on his shoulders. Staub quickly realises he can only save this man’s life if he is able to make sense of the messages hidden in the graffiti. A race with time begins.