
When Frank Dudley, a longtime Agency man languishing in the twilight of his career, vanishes without a trace, a junior officer, Kevin Corkey, new to the CIA and unsure he belongs there among the policy mandarins and "black ops" cowboys, is assigned the case. Has the missing man met with foul play? Or has Dudley, a disgruntled member of the old school and the subject of polite contempt, though still a man who knows where a great many skeletons lie buried, hatched a scheme for revenge against those who have passed him by?