For the first time, Quiller, the seasoned shadow executive of the anonymous Bureau in London, takes on a mission kept secret even from the head of the Bureau himself. Its code name is Salamander, its theater of operations Cambodia, its target Pol Pot, the architect of the infamous Killing Fields. Even as he arrives in the steaming heat of Phnom Penh, Quiller knows that he can trust neither Flockhart, his control in London, nor Pringle, his director in the field. His only ally is Gabrielle Bouchard, a young Eurasian photojournalist, who is waging her private vendetta against the murderous guerrillas of the Khmer Rouge. Endangered at every turn by Flockhart's reticence and the treacherous jungle, Quiller undertakes a suicide mission in the hope of saving Phnom Penh from an eleventh-hour attack by the Khmer Rouge intended to reinstate its bloody rule in Cambodia.