The storyline
While arms negotiations are in progress, the Americans and the Russians gets involved in a frantic race to build a laser-defense system protecting their respective countries from ballistic missiles. Both blocs are also indirectly confronting each other in Afghanistan.
At this game, everyone is spying on each other, but CIA holds a winning card within the Soviet Ministry of Defense: Cardinal. Colonel Filitov has been feeding the Americans with Russian intelligence for over 30 years; everything depends on him. But luck can change at any time...
Quotes (from the book)
...Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That look on tempests and is never shaken;...
Sonnet116
William Shakespeare
[T]he operations of spies, saboteurs and secret agents are generally regarded as outside the scope of national and international law. They are therefore anathema to all accepted standards of conduct. Nevertheless history shows that no nation will shrink from such activities if they further its vital interests.
Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of cause.
William James
Cover Harper Collins