Early one morning in West Berlin, a nervous courier delivers the handwritten manuscript of a dissident Russian novel to agent Paul Christopher; minutes later the courier's spine is snapped by an impact with a passing limousine. Meanwhile in Rome, Christopher's wife Cathy takes a lover in an attempt to stir her husband's stoicism.

These two seemingly discrete events set in motion a spiral of operational and personal intrigue that leads Christopher from Europe to Africa, as he secretly arranges the publication of a book that could bring the Soviet Union to its knees and races to identify the leak that compromised his messenger – and possibly the entire mission.