The Viking is an old boxer who wants to prove to his supervisors in the police department that he is still very much a tough guy, and so he participates in the mission of bringing some young suspects to the cells at the dictator's Palacio Negro. A maid, María Elena, starts working for the grandson of her old boss and finds that there is no one on her first day. After asking the neighbors and taking alarming calls from family members, María Elena realizes the importance of Albertico and Brita's disappearance. She will have to turn to an old acquaintance in the police department - one who had worked for her old boss and whom she had dated - for help. Through her innocent inquiries, María Elena is witness to savage arrests and to fights put up by subversive groups, among whom she fleetingly recognizes someone familiar. Worry turns to anguish when she needs to ask herself the whereabouts of her daughter and grandchild. The most action-packed novelby Horacio Castellanos Moya brings together the stories of several characters in the midst of the most unimaginable barbarity.