Stortorget Square, Stockholm, 1945.
"In a side street, Peter waited near the car with Evdokia dressed in a grey raincoat. Her head was covered with a black cloth bag. A car stopped on the opposite side of the square. Two men emerged. Peter recognized one of them as the NKVD head of station, Major Vladimir Petrov, in a business suit and a fedora. He led the way, followed by a second man wearing a workman's cap over his white hair. The hand-off was to happen in the middle of the square. Evdokia stumbled badly on the cobblestones in her heels as Peter brought up his Webley revolver to show the Russians he was taking no chances.
"Mr Faye. Thank you so much for bringing my wife," Vladimir said. "Why have you put a bag on her head?"
"To shut the bitch up, Mr Petrov."
"Ha, ha. You have a sense of humour. You don't intend to shoot her, do you?"
"Maybe I will, Mr Petrov. Is this your man Sasha?"
"Yes, this is Sasha from Moscow."
"You will not live long, Mr Faye," Sasha said. "Your friend Bernie Dixon screamed like a pig. We do the same to you." From the bestselling author of Playing Rudolf Hess, Shipwrecked Lives, Remembrance Man and White Slaves comes this brilliantly imagined spy thriller set in wartime Sweden. On his first assignment for MI6, British agent Peter Faye is sent to Stockholm to spy on German intelligence officer Karl-Heinz Kramer. At the British legation, he meets his new boss Bridget, a very proper, smart-as-a-whip, diplomat's daughter and immediately falls in love with her. They recruit an Austrian maid, Hanne, who works in the Kramer household. Hanne makes copies the key to Kramer's desk drawer and delivers secret documents to Peter and his driver Bernie who photograph them in a shed nearby. The documents are so sensitive they cause a huge commotion in London. With the help of a Swedish journalist, Peter discovers a network of Soviet moles working in British Intelligence and becomes the target of Soviet NKVD terror tactics.
