In Jack Higgins' final spy thriller featuring the top-secret Bureau, their premier agent Paul Chavasse is sent on an undercover mission to smash a gang of cross-Channel people smugglers. Will he get out alive?

When Special Branch identifies a gangland boss caught in the nets of a fishing boat, his rotting body weighted down with seventy pounds of chain, they suspect the involvement of ruthless cross-Channel people traffickers and hand the case over to British Intelligence.

The last time the Bureau had been called in, their undercover agent Paul Chavasse had ended up in jail. But that was nothing compared to this. This time Chavasse knows his enemy.

As he embarks on what will be one of the most dangerous missions in his extraordinary career, Chavasse infiltrates the operation and soon discovers that these are no small-time smugglers. The perpetrators will stop at nothing to protect their brutal trade. Is this mission too deadly even for Chavasse?