The Tamarind Seed

Book excerpt: An Englishwoman falls for a Russian wanted by Intelligence on both sides of the Iron Curtain in this classic tale of Cold War espionage As executive assistant to a senior diplomat at the UN, widow Judith Farrow spends most of her working hours handling classified information. When her boss insists she take some time off in Barbados, she’s happy to escape her dead-end love affair with a very prominent, very married British attaché. But from the moment Judith meets Feodor Sverdlov, her low-key vacation turns into an international nightmare that threatens her job—and her life. A disillusioned military attaché working for the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC, Sverdlov is known as a very dangerous man east and west of the Iron Curtain. Neither the British SIS nor the CIA believes his trip to the West Indies was an accident of fate. Suddenly Judith is perceived as a high-level risk, and Intelligence agent Jack Loder is dispatched to neutralize the situation. Now, Judith and Loder must identify the traitor in their midst—a mole code-named “Blue,” who’s firmly entrenched in DC’s power circles and preparing to deliver an irreversible blow to western civilization—before it’s too late.