A Russian agent is "asleep," undercover as a London toymaker, living with a stunningly beautiful woman. When at last he receives the coded signal that lures him in out of the cold, he enters a world besieged with uncertainty. Suddenly, he becomes an agonized pawn in a high-level, international chess game of dangerously tenuous allegiances, consummate sexual intrigues and lightning-swift assassination. He is an instrument of death. perhaps even his own!