‘It’ll be simple,’ Slade had said. ‘You’re just a messenger boy.’ To Alan Stewart, alone on a lonely road in Iceland with a murdered man in front of him and a mysterious parcel which Slade. Secret Service chief, had commissioned him to deliver in his car, it looked anything but simple. And that was only the beginning. Desmond Bagley’s new thriller is set in one of the most sparsely populated countries, and among some of the most dramatic scenery in the world, where communication in the wastes of the Obyggdir depends on wireless and transport on a Land-Rover’s ability to traverse impossible terrain. But the natural obstacles of boiling geysers, fast-flowing rivers, sheer cliffs, steep-sided valleys, are only a small part of what Stewart has to contend with as, aided only by his girl-friend Elin, he battles to carry out his mission on the one hand and on the other to stifle the suspicion that he has been double-crossed. His Russian adversary, like the tip of an iceberg, is perhaps only the part of the opposition that shows. And the contents of the small, vital parcel? That remains a surprise — for the reader as much as for Stewart in a finale of formidable power