The four old spies are long past their glory days, and now meet up mostly at the funerals of former colleagues, after which they typically enjoy an hour or two of complaining about the relaxation of standards at Britain?s security services. The latest indignity: The Director has recently sent round a most discourteous directive that the four are under no circumstances to consider writing their memoirs. Well, they are not to be ordered about like some band of errand-boys! They served their country with honor, and the country has the right to know it. In fact, if you think about it, publishing their memoirs is a patriotic duty. Unfortunately, the Director doesn?t see it quite that way.

"There's a recession on, you know." With an unemployed son and a baby on the way, these 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 in 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.