Under any other circumstances it would have been cause for celebration when Nick Carter’s three friends showed up in the States— • the cross-eyed Egyptian criminologist Hakim Sadek, who had so often used his devious talents and hideous appearance to such devastating effect. • the jolly peasant woman Valentina Sichikova, the Russian agent who was built like a tank but had a heart as big and warm as the sun • and the beautiful Julia Baron with whom Nick Carter is as much in love as his dangerous profession permits… — but their reunion is not to celebrate mutual admiration, friendship or love — it is a “nightmare party’, an assignment so perilous that the foundations of the free world will crumble into radioactive dust if they do not succeed. Already the whole of the United States has been gripped with panic under the terrifying rumours of drugs added to drinking water, poisons in the air — an invasion from outer space!