<B>A covert operation with catastrophic consequences collides with fate in this inventive novel of conspiracy, subterfuge, and murder unfurling against a factual, tragic, and heart-stopping moment in history.</B><P>April 1912:<B> </B>Shortly after midnight in Berlin, mere yards from the British Embassy, an English spy is shot after a clandestine meeting with a German government official. He utters three cryptic words, then dies. It’s an ambush as calculated and cold-blooded as the scheme it helps set in motion. <P> <P>For tyrannical German financier Gunther Voss, it’s the biggest gamble he has ever undertaken: commit America to joining forces with Germany against Great Britain, destroy an empire, and secure for himself the invaluable South African mining concessions currently controlled by the British. It would make the formidable Voss one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world. <P> <P>It has fallen on the unique talents of Alex Tremayne of Britain’s Secret Service Bureau and beautiful, fearless American agent Maria Weston to stop Voss dead in his tracks. Traveling undercover as man and wife, their mission is to neutralize Voss’s plan before he reaches the States. But Tremayne and Weston are unprepared for the explosive plays of fate that await them, and their doomed journey is more demanding, and far more treacherous than they could ever have imagined.