For years Nick Bryson was the top field man in the Directorate; an ultra-secret US intelligence agency, until a disastrous operation forced him to retire under a new identity. But now the CIA tell him that the Directorate was not what it seemed -and that, with the Cold War over, it seems to be preparing for a world-threatening new coup... Angry at having been used, Nick readily agrees to go after his one-time masters - and Nick is still very, very good. But this time, he is up against a global conspiracy combining power-seekers from the murkiest realms of terrorism, intelligence and crime, more powerful than any government, richer and better protected than any army, and closing fast on an end Nick cannot discover. And this time, too, there is literally no one in the world he can trust...