"There were two passengers in the Transit Lounge at Frankfurt Airport whose lives were to depend on what took place in the next thirty minutes.
Sir Stafford Nye was a diplomat returning to London after attending a Commission in Malaya. Fog had caused his plane to be diverted via Frankfurt. He would arrive in London two hours late at least.
He sighed, yawned, and wished something would happen. He pushed aside the folds of the cloak it was his affectation to wear when travelling - a kind of Bandit's Cloak, concealing the face, which he had once purchased in Corsica. It was a noticeable garment - but Stafford Nye had a liking for the bizarre.
A young woman sat down beside him. Her face was vaguely familiar. Someone he had once met, he supposed. She held a magazine but was not reading. She was staring at him.
Then suddenly she spoke - a deep contralto voice, with a slight foreign accent.
'May I speak to you?'
'Why not?' Stafford Nye said lightly. 'It seems we have time to waste.'
This casual encounter on a Trans-European passenger flight to London was to lead them to strange and unexpected places, to encounters with people as yet unknown to them, into a maze of conspiracy and plotting and danger.
Twenty minutes later Trans-European Airlines announced the departure of their Flight 309 for London.
And in a corner of the Transit Lounge in Frankfurt a man in a dark suit lay slumped against the back of his seat, apparently asleep. On the table in front of him was an empty beer glass." -- Inside cover.