Sly and dry intelligence agent, Harry Palmer is tasked with investigating British Intelligence security, and is soon enmeshed in a world of double-dealing, kidnap and murder when he finds a traitor operating at the heart of the secret service.
Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.
The Dirty Dozen meet the Stiff Upper Lip. A British Petroleum executive is assigned to work with the British Army in North Africa handling port duties for incoming fuels.