RED STATION

An MI5 agent outwits his handlers.

A botched MI5 operation causes Harry Tate to be whisked out of England before the press gets hold of him and he blabs secrets his boss George Paulton, MI6 nabob Lord Bellingham and the subcommittee overseeing security chair Marcella Rudmann would rather remain secret. Off he goes to a remote outpost in South Ossetia, an area trying to break away from Georgia. Harry, supposedly the new cultural attaché—though nobody really believes that, certainly not the Moscow-approved mayor Kostova—learns that his four officemates are also disgraced agents who have been sidelined to keep their mouths shut. Still, they’re being tailed, and Harry makes it his business to find out by whom. Turns out by other members of British Intelligence. Then the Russians are on the move to reclaim Ossetia, but rather than get Harry and the Red Station members out, somebody called the Hit is sent in to assassinate them, a task the annihilator has performed twice before on station members. The chase is on. Will Harry survive? Of course he will, but not before a major car chase, a last-minute rescue by the mayor’s bodyguard and some computer wizardry that proves MI5 and MI6 bigwigs—bigger fry than Harry—were responsible for the event that led up to his banishment, as well as other deaths staged to protect their reputations.

First in a proposed thriller series that promises to be heavy on derring-do, political malfeasance and the hero’s invincibility.