The clandestine delivery out of the Soviet Union of a literary masterpiece and the brutal murder of the courier sent Paul Christopher on a search for the security break. But he finds, as well, some startling truths about the motives of agents, the methods they use - and the damage they do. Set at the height of the Cold War this is an extraordinary novel that reveals more about the realities of the intelligence community than you would want to know.

A Russian scientist defects, believing that in the West he will more easily realize his dream of contacting planets in outer space. But British Intelligence and the CIA have more worldly plans for him and move quickly, relentlessly, leaving behind a trail of blood which stretches from the Sahara desert to Manhattan, Paris, Dublin and halfway back across Africa.

The Dream: Perestroika succeeds, the world begins to disarm, a new era of peace and stability is ushered in. The Soviet President continues with his program of reform and liberalisation... The Nightmare: Patrick Hyde, of British Intelligence, on patrol with a mujahideen group inside Soviet Tadjikistan, witnesses the shooting down of a Soviet military airliner by the Red Army. When he recognises a senior CIA officer and, to his horror, the identity of one of the aircraft's passengers, he has only one priority, to reach London and Sir Kenneth Aubrey.

The pope is dead - but the papacy lives on. Already, from all corners of the globe, grizzled, scarlet-suited cardinals are gathering to elect a successor. Within the hushed confines of the Vatican, the air is alive with intrigue. Then in the midst of the most frenzied canvassing, comes a surprise result. The new Pope, Kiril I, is the youngest cardinal - and a Russian, recently released from seventeen years in the labour camps.

Sent from Russia to Australia at the height of East-West tensions, Savva Golitsyn has long been an undercover spy, or 'sleeper', waiting for his call. Now the Cold War is over and he wants to go home. But Savva's reappearance sets in motion a train of events that will impact across three continents. From Australia and Russia and then to the Sudan, there are those who wish Savva Golitsyn had stayed asleep together