Spy Story

by Len Deighton

The story opens with Armstrong and his colleague Ferdy Foxwell returning from a six-week mission aboard a nuclear submarine, gathering data on Soviet communications and electronic warfare techniques in the Arctic Ocean. He and Foxwell visit "The Bonnet", a rural Scottish public house. On returning to London, Armstrong's car breaks down on his way home and he decides to use the phone in his old flat, for which he still has the key. He is surprised and disturbed to discover that the flat has been refurnished, including photographs which he owns but with someone else replacing him in the images, wearing identical clothes. He discovers a door hidden in the back of the wardrobe leading into the adjoining flat, which has been fitted out as some kind of sick bay. When he leaves the flat thinking that a taxi he ordered has arrived, he is confronted by Special Branch officers who have a former member of the Studies Centre verify who he is before releasing him.

While they were away, the Studies Centre acquired a new boss, the abrasive American, Charles Schlegel, a former Marine Corps Colonel. Foxwell and Schlegel do not get on at all well and even less so when Schlegel makes Armstrong his Personal Assistant. Shortly after his return, Armstrong is about to leave his flat when it is ransacked by KGB Colonel Oleg Stok and two assistants, who even blow open a safe left by the previous occupant. They offer no explanation for this, leaving Armstrong yet more puzzled. At a party at Ferdy Foxwell's palatial London house, Armstrong learns that Foxwell is close to MP Ben Toliver and has even been passing him classified information. Also at the party is Dawlish, the head of the intelligence organisation WOOC (P) of earlier books. We learn that Armstrong worked for Dawlish before deciding to quit intelligence work. Dawlish tries to recruit him but Armstrong turns him down.

Toliver has a suspicious car accident returning home from Foxwell's party. Armstrong traces the woman who was reported to be with him to a small French restaurant, where he discovers photos of a Soviet Rear-Admiral and a Soviet Rear-Admiral's uniform being made. He returns to the restaurant later to discover it deserted. Breaking in, he discovers all traces of what he had earlier seen have been removed, along with all paperwork. Armstrong uses the Studies Centre library to find the name of the Soviet Rear-Admiral: Remoziva, whose equally high-achieving sister is leading a Soviet delegation negotiating the re-unification of East and West Germany.

Leaving the restaurant, he is met by a high-ranking police officer who escorts him to Battersea, from where a helicopter takes him to Heathrow Airport, from whence he is flown north in a small single-engine aircraft. It takes him to a remote location in the West of Scotland, where he finds Toliver and his co-conspirators. It appears that they have been running their own unauthorised intelligence operation to arrange the defection of Admiral Remoziva, who will die within a year if he does not receive treatment for a kidney condition. The plan is to meet the Admiral on the Arctic ice and leave a corpse in his place. They had planned to keep him at Armstrong's former flat, and use the adjoining medical bay to treat him. Armstrong receives a message from an unidentified member of the clique advising him to leave, which he does. After a nightmare journey through a snow storm, he reaches a road, where he finds Dawlish and Schlegel waiting. They tell him that the defection is still on, though using a USN submarine instead of a British one.

Out on the Arctic ice, they rendezvous with Remoziva's helicopter but it turns out to contain Colonel Stok. After a brief struggle the helicopter takes off with one of Stok's men holding on to Foxwell. Armstrong grabs Foxwell's legs and is also hauled aloft. He fires at the man holding Foxwell and they both fall to the ice. He manages to lift Foxwell and staggers off to where their submarine has surfaced but by the time he reaches it Foxwell is dead. At the end of the book it is revealed that the scheme was to discredit Remoziva and by association, his siblings; his sister is forced to step down from the German Re-unification negotiations, causing the talks to collapse.