Ukraine, 1943. Having barely escaped the inferno of Stalingrad, Major Martin Bora is still serving on the Russian front as a German counterintelligence officer. As the Wehrmacht prepare for the Kursk counter-offensive, a Russian general defects aboard a t-34, the most advanced tank of the war. Soon he and another general, this one previously captured, are found dead in their cells. Everything appears to exclude the likelihood of foul play, but Bora begins an investigation.