Berlin, 1961: Fielding Scott, a disgraced MI6 agent, is given a chance to rehabilitate. He is supposed to organize the defection of an East German scientist who has made an explosive discovery. The operation fails. There must be a mole within the Allied secret services. Scott goes on a dangerous search for the traitor.

Fielding's Berlin life is unraveling; he decides to go rogue and provoke the Russians into retaliating; at the same time he is now being blackmailed over his affair with Severine.