"That delay in the delivery of the message from Málaga could have been absolutely disastrous. As it was, there had been irreparable loss: an agent dead."

Under the Mediterranean sun, a drama begins in a café in Málaga. For Ian Ferrier, an employee of the United States Space Agency on holiday to visit his old friend Jeff Reid, it means the startling discovery that Reid is not just a wine exporter, but rather engaged in smuggling communist defectors to the West. Events take a turn for the worse when Ferrier, a stranger to the deadly world of espionage, must take sole charge of a high-ranking KGB agent.

Alone in an frighteningly alien landscape, he can afford no mistakes when choosing whom to trust ...