It was 1953, and nothing could shake William Denning's resolve to leave the army and return to the States. Nothing, except one of the largest diamond hauls ever - which, in the wrong hands, on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, was a potentially lethal force.

In a small village in the Swiss mountains, Denning discovered that there was not only a jewellery robbery at stake. In the ruthless world of espionage and international conspiracy his adversaries were the most unlikely people - and the most dangerous.