Sir Gordon Thurston is the incoming Head of MI6. He has been briefed with much sensitive information, such as current and future missions and the department's foreign policy. En route to a meeting in Paris he is abducted, and an identical substitute put in his place. The deception is soon recognised, but anxiety grows when his whereabouts cannot be traced. The task of finding Sir Gordon falls to Sector Three, an ultra-secret intelligence splinter group, and an agent with the code name Robert Lane sets out on a mission which takes him to Portugal, Italy and a remote region of Russia. The group that carried out the abduction is identified and its leader, a former Soviet general called Pilatov, is a known fanatic. As Lane follows him from country to country in constant danger, he knows that Pilatov will stop at nothing to restore the old regime and its deadly threat to the West.