Alistair MacLean · 1959 · thriller

Alistair MacLean's 1959 Cold War thriller. British agent Michael Reynolds slips across the Iron Curtain from Vienna into Communist Hungary on a desperate mission: to find an aged scientist held in Budapest and smuggle him back to the West. Amid the terror of the secret police and a brave underground, Reynolds must run the gauntlet of the frontier with the enemy at his heels.

1. 1
   Vienna

   From Vienna, the British agent Michael Reynolds prepares to cross into Communist Hungary - a place from which few Western agents have ever returned - on a mission his masters believe impossible.

2. 2
   Sopron

   He slips over the wire near Sopron, past the watchtowers and minefields of the Iron Curtain, and into a country where every stranger is watched and a wrong word to the wrong man means the cellars of the AVO.

3. 3
   Budapest

   In the streets of Budapest, Reynolds hunts for an aged scientist held by the regime, aided by a brave resistance and hunted by the secret police, whose net tightens around him by the hour.

4. 4
   Andau

   With the scientist in his charge and the AVO at his back, Reynolds makes a desperate dash for the crossing at Andau - a last, brutal run through snow and gunfire toward the freedom of the West.