missile arsenal, in preparation for a preemptive first strike against the United States. To the south, The Shah of Iran struggles to maintain his waning authority over an increasingly restless and hostile populace. Without knowing it, the CIA’s Tehran station has but one year before the United States embassy is ransacked by violent Iranian mobs and its staff held hostage for more than a year, all Americans are forced to flee, and diplomatic relations with the United States are indefinitely severed. Into this cauldron of international tension steps the CIA’s Special Activities Division, a small group of get-it-done professionals who undertake a top-secret mission that, if successful, will expose and neutralize the Soviets’ first-strike ambitions. But the mission’s success will depend on the untested loyalty and skills of three Soviet citizens, two men and a woman, who are prepared to die to save their country from a nuclear holocaust. Author John Sager, himself a CIA veteran of many years, tells the story as no one else could, having served in both countries during the height of the Cold War. The tale closely parallels his own CIA training and experience.

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