A senior SIS field officer has gone missing. Thornton is ordered to investigate discreetly. He'd talk to a few people, invent some plausible, probably bureaucratic reason. Check records. Pull back if anyone got too interested. He knew that Fisher, the missing man, was good. Good enough to do things his own way, not the head office way, and get away with it. No money troubles. No indiscretions. Balanced. No question of defection. Thorton soon enters a maze of lies, obstruction and deception surrounding an innocent German girl with extraordinary powers, KGB and CIA plots and counter plots, an East/West kidnapping - and a spy with a conscience.