Before there was The Company, Robert Littell made a name for himself with this cold war thriller.A.J. Lewinter is an American scientist, for years an insignificant cog in America's complex defense machinery. While at an academic conference in Tokyo, Lewinter contacts the KGB station chief and says he wants to defect. He tantalizes the Russians with U.S. military secrets he claims to possess, but is his defection genuine? Neither the Russians nor the Americans are sure. The superpowers are locked in a deadly contest that exploits friendships, destroys loyalties, and manipulates human beings as expendable pawns— as Lewinter is swept up in a terrifying political chess match of deceit and treachery.

Before there was The Company, Robert Littell made a name for himself with this cold war thriller.A.J. Lewinter is an American scientist, for years an insignificant cog in America's complex defense machinery. While at an academic conference in Tokyo, Lewinter contacts the KGB station chief and says he wants to defect. He tantalizes the Russians with U.S. military secrets he claims to possess, but is his defection genuine? Neither the Russians nor the Americans are sure. The superpowers are locked in a deadly contest that exploits friendships, destroys loyalties, and manipulates human beings as expendable pawns— as Lewinter is swept up in a terrifying political chess match of deceit and treachery.