For astronaut David Dixon, sneaking aboard a Russian space station and stealing a nuclear bomb was the easy part-now he has to survive re-entry on an untested inflatable heat shield and then deal with the aftermath of being the most wanted man on Earth. When a clandestine intelligence agency offers David the chance to return to space and probably not get killed-he finds himself in a world of intrigue when a secret mission takes an unexpected turn as he goes undercover on an orbiting science platform in order to track down the spymaster known as Silverback.