SIS Director of Intelligence Edward Tyler meets a suspicious woman while on holiday in Malta, so Burnside secretly sends the Sandbaggers to keep an eye on him.

When a rival for Burnside's job gets hold of a CIA document that describes Burnside as a divisive influence, SIS upper management contrives to promote Burnside ``sideways'' to Madrid.

CIA Head of London Station Jeff Ross asks for Burnside's help when Ross' marriage is in trouble, but then Burnside starts to suspect that the KGB and MI5 have an interest in that marriage as well.

'C' orders Burnside to go on a working holiday in Rhodes, and while he's gone, Ross asks Caine for some risky backup in the USSR, but as Acting D.Ops., Caine would have to send Wallace.

Burnside is opposed to an East-West arms treaty being negotiated in Malta, so he and the Sandbaggers conspire to scuttle the talks by encouraging a Soviet double agent to defect.

Burnside tries to get approval to plant a woman in the Soviet Union as a long-term double agent, but he neglects to mention that her real mission is short-term human rights propaganda.

When a British intelligence source is killed in an accident in Prague, Caine is sent in to find out what really happened while Wallace and Burnside look for clues at home.