William F. Buckley， Jr. editor of National Review， may be remembered by posterity as the novelist who created Blackford Oakes. In this installment， Buckley uses a celebrated incident of 20 years ago to create a fictional adventure with official history. Oakes has just been cashiered from the Agency， when his boss decides he is the only man for an exceptionally dirty piece of work. Oakes agrees to return， but in short order finds himself standing before a secret Soviet military tribunal which has as its subject his execution for spying.