In this second of Len Deighton's three-part spy series, British agent
Bernard Samson is suffering the consequences of having meddled when he was
instructed to steer clear. Far from being thanked for ferreting out what appeared to
be evidence of an unprecedented breach of security in the Secret Service, he is on
the run from an arrest warrant issued by the Servicenaming him a traitor.

When he is suddenly called back to London, all charges dropped, Samson is
unsurprised to learn that the strings attached to this promise of freedom could
bind him for life. And when he is off-handedly given an assignment in Vienna,
Samson realizes he has taken the first, irreversible steps toward the center of
a web of mystery and subterfuge even more complex, and more perilous, than
he had feared.