The first edition of this book (titled “Samurai Leap”) was published more than twenty years ago. Working on the book was not easy. It took two years to collect material and prepare the manuscript. We, the authors, bit by bit, and often based on the “reservations” of our legendary intelligence officers, among whom we can name Pavel Anatolyevich Sudoplatov, Yuri Ivanovich Drozdov, Leonid Vladimirovich Shebarshin, Alexei Nikolaevich Botyan, built a literary version of one of the most outstanding operations of the domestic special services, during greatly influenced the course of events in world history in the mid-20th century. And as it turned out, this book was in many ways ahead of its time. Today, when the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service lifted the veil of secrecy over Operation Snow, it became clear that this book is not only about the past - it is about our far from simple present and no less complex and a tricky future.