British Intelligence operative Peter Ashton returns from an out-of-the-country assignment to discover the office in an uproar. A SIS safehouse in Yorkshire has been the site of incredible carnage -- three agents savagely murdered and the other one missing, as is the man they were guarding. Equally upsetting for Ashton is that his own wife discovered the bodies and "cleaned" the safehouse -- and she could be the next on someone's private hit list. While an internal power struggle rips through the heart of the SIS, Ashton joins the search for the killers and must sort through a confusing series of leads: one leading to Cuban gangsters, another to Islamic terrrorists, and one straight to his old nemesis, Russian Intelligence chief, Pavel Treliser. A compelling novel of espionage -- from one of the acknowledged masters of the game.