*International No 1 bestselling novelist`s compulsive thriller - a simple spy hunt becomes a desperate battle to serve the West. For forty years Western intelligence agents have known a terrible secret: the Russians have a mole--code-named Talbot--inside the CIA. At first Talbot is suspected of killing European agents. Then a street-smart ex-cop uncovers a storm of espionage and murder on the streets of New York, while in a Long Island suburb a civic demonstration against the Russian mission masks a desperate duel of nerves and wits. Engineered by Talbot, a shadow world of suspicion and deceit is spilling onto the streets--leading to a new Soviet weapon and a first-strike war plan threatening the foundations of American government. For the U.S., time is running out. For Talbot, the time is now.