This true sto­ry begins on an Autumn morn­ing in 1978. A sail­boat runs aground on the Chesa­peake Bay. The coast guard finds bul­lets scat­tered on the deck, top secret gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments in the gal­ley, and a clas­si­fied trans­mit­ter used to com­mu­ni­cate with satellites.

There’s no sign of the boat’s own­er, John Pais­ley, a high-rank­ing CIA offi­cial. Ten days lat­er an unrec­og­niz­able body wrapped in chains floats to the sur­face. The CIA has no fin­ger­print records, but iden­ti­fies the corpse as Pais­ley. It’s quick­ly cremated.

But in Brus­sels, a retired CIA offi­cer, Pete Bagley, decides this mys­tery might hold a clue to all that went wrong at the agency – the blown ops, the agents caught and executed.

And it’d give him the oppor­tu­ni­ty to redeem his own tar­nished rep­u­ta­tion: the CIA had accused him of being a mole. He heads off an sus­pense­ful quest that at its end reveals the last great secret of the Cold War – as well as a con­tin­u­um of trea­son that stretch­es to today.