Operation Maldoror never officially existed. There is no trace of it in the media or police records. When Belgium was shaken in the mid-1990s by a series of kidnappings of underage girls, and citizens and the press were furious at the police's incompetence, the head of the gendarmerie set up a special unit to find the kidnappers and their victims. Its ranks included Paul Chartier, a young and impulsive policeman who undertakes a hopeless fight for justice. During his investigation, he comes across a conspiracy of silence that is climbing to the highest levels of power. He quickly realizes that in order to catch the criminals, he will have to defeat not only the criminals, but also his own superiors. And the desire to save children from a fate worse than death will drive him to the edge of madness.