Libya is preparing to ship arms to the Provisional IRA, and McCready sends Tom Rowse, a former SAS officer who is now a novelist, to Libya under the cover of researching a book. Rowse makes contact with the Libyan arms dealer and adds an order to the shipment. The SIS can then identify the cargo ship, and McCready enlists the help of the Special Boat Service to intercept it. Monica, a woman Rowse is strongly attracted to, proves to be mixed up with the gun-runners and is shot dead when the ship is boarded.

An American intelligence agent investigates the sudden disappearance of a colleague who was stationed in East Berlin. He finds a conspiracy to murder a Soviet politician.

A Soviet general offers the SIS important military documents, and a meeting is set up in East Germany, with McCready in charge of the operation. As the Soviets know him, he recruits his old friend Bruno Morenz, a BND agent, who has to break BND rules to enter East Germany, which he does as a favour to McCready. Morenz secures the documents, but his life is in chaos, as he has just accidentally killed a woman and her pimp boyfriend and is on the run from the police. McCready finds Morenz a hiding place and enters East Germany to join him. With the Stasi closing in on them, and Morenz unable to escape, McCready kills him with poison, takes the documents, and escapes to the West.

Sunshine, an island in the British West Indies, is about to become independent, but shortly before the handover, in the middle of a bitterly fought presidential election campaign, the British governor is shot dead. Sam McCready of SIS sends in Desmond Hannah of Scotland Yard, but he can only go there unofficially. The governor's widow, Lady Beatrix Coltrane tells Hannah that most of the inhabitants are not looking forward to independence, trusting neither of the two presidential candidates and fearing for their future. One candidate, Tomson is said to have drug-running connections, while the other, Livingstone, has links with Cuba. Drake, the island's priest, is also against independence. Ernie Favaro, a police detective from Miami, arrives to investigate a murder ordered by the Medellín Cartel. Hannah and Favaro work together but are not welcomed by the island's chief constable. Someone shoots at them, and they catch him and find it is Drake, who wanted to create a sensation, not to hit them. The local police then arrest Hannah and Favaro for illegal possession of firearms. McCready arrives, deus ex machina, as the acting Governor of Sunshine Island and takes charge of the case. Lady Coltrane hints that she killed her husband herself. Favaro calls on Tomson and in his house sees a rare copy of Paradise Lost which leads back to the Medellín. McCready visits Tomson with Favaro, who steals the book, and inside it is a microfilm with the names and details of Medellín Cartel deals. Tomson tries to escape, and is shot. The presidential election is postponed until further notice, and McCready remains on the island as Governor.

The French government expels dozens of Soviet diplomats, and Rodimstev, head of the KGB, forms an alliance with Carlos the Jackal to punish France. Sam McCready works to hinder them, going outside the law and the rules of his department. He has his own grudge match with Carlos, as his son Nick McCready was disabled in a terrorist attack.^[3]

While on a Soviet Military Intelligence visit to Britain, a Russian contacts the CIA station in London, wishing to defect to the US, claiming to be Colonel Pyotr Orlov of the KGB. Orlov's information leads to the arrest of several Soviet spies around the world and also gives insights into the Soviets' military planning. But McCready senses that something is wrong, and the head of the KGB's London office, who works for McCready under the name of Keepsake, claims that Orlov is not a defector at all, but a KGB plant, the purpose being to falsely discredit a high-ranking CIA officer as a Soviet mole. The American and British sides refuse to believe each other's versions of events, and "Orlov" succeeds in bringing down the supposed CIA traitor. Keepsake then suddenly returns to Moscow, casting doubt on McCready's warnings. Aiming to prevent the disintegration of the CIA, McCready brings Keepsake back from Moscow, and Keepsake says he went there to get solid proof that the Orlov defection is a deception. However, a CIA agent then kills the man Orlov identified as a mole, and when Orlov is exposed, he accepts execution.