内容简介：
Following up on the mysterious radioactive poisoning of more than 30 research scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, Washington reporter Peter Robbins pursues an unusually intensive investigation in an attempt to prove to his newspaper editors that he is worthy of being sent back overseas as a foreign correspondent, something he has done for much of his career. His inquiry eventually leads him to South Korea, and to a pair of scientists tricked into working on nuclear and chemical weapons in North Korea, thinking they were working on covert programs controlled by their government. Along the way he becomes involved, in a torrid affair with a raven-haired Eurasian beauty, is encouraged by the Central Intelligence Agency to perform a mission its agents could not safely tackle, becomes aware of a number of wanton murders, and is himself the target of two very close-call attempts on his own life. His quest confronts a very unexpected twist at the end.