There's a recession on, you know. With an unemployed son and a baby on the way, those are not words that Michael Wyman wants to hear, particularly not from his employers -- the university where he's a professor of philosophy or the British secret service for which he's worked for 30 years. And he most particularly doesn't want to hear them from both employers at once, accompanied by the information that he's being laid off without a pension. Happily, a miracle is at hand, in the form of a Communist spy burrowed deep into the highest reaches of British intelligence. An East German defector can identify the spy, thus safeguarding national security and protecting the government from crippling embarrassment. He is willing to give up the information, but only to one man. At fifty-six years old, Wyman has one last chance to get back in the game . . . and get out on his own terms.