He stepped off a TU-104 at Moscow Airport. He was Ivan Kokoschka, a man with two interests in life - research for his new novel and a rendezvous with Sonia, the willowy ballerina from the Bolshoi. Only, he wasn't really Ivan; he was Tom Slade, a trusted agent of AXE, America's super-secret intelligence force. And he wasn't really Ton Slade either. He was Nick Carter, the top AXE-man whom the Inner Circle referred to as KILLMASTER. And it wasn't only Sonia that Killmaster had to fool. There was also Comrade Ludmilla, the violet-eyed spy who hated all Americans. Over these agents rages the battle of the super-agents: Hawk, mysterious chief of AXE, and Smirnov, legendary dean of Russian Intelligence. Their mission - to find out who is leaking embassy documents to the Red Chinese. Their deadline - to prevent the explosion of World War III!