He is a man whose profession is risk. A friend among strangers, a stranger among his own, he lives all his life “under a legend.” Lives in danger and in lies. He is a man who has reached the highest heights in the difficult art of foreign intelligence. A master spy who carries out the most difficult missions. He is a man whose every day is a sophisticated game with death. But he plays until the bitter end... There are many real characters in this novel - the leaders of Soviet intelligence and agents on both sides. The novel tells for the first time the true circumstances of the escape of the “super spy” of British intelligence Oleg Gordievsky, the arrest of Ronald Pelton, and the betrayal of Vitaly Yurchenko. For the first time, the reasons for the sensationally successful meeting between Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev are also described.