Spy catcher Max Carmichael’s pursuit of a suspected traitor at the heart of the UK’s nuclear deterrent is frustrated as MI5 priorities shift focus towards IRA activity during the ‘hunger strikes’ of 1981.

IRA enforcer Michael O’Halloran following repeated seizures of arms shipments by the FBI is certain there is a ‘rat’ in the camp adding to his infuriation that the Army Council’s attentions lie elsewhere.

Tony Sheridan a disillusioned MoD scientist, set up as a patsy in a fatal nuclear incident cover up finds himself as a pawn played in a deadly chess match of international espionage.

Carmichael, O’Halloran and Sheridan’s paths intersect in a bloody cycle of terror fashioned from a high stakes Cold War plot orchestrated by the KGB’s Spymaster Georgy Mishkin. Mishkin’s war on MI5, without bounds in its body count or scale, brings Carmichael, Sheridan and O’Halloran together in the search for the traitors in their own ranks. The revelations leading to unintended consequences probing deep into the core of their own sense of morality and loyalty.