Jean-Jacques Jadot had spent a rainy weekend at his seaside cottage in Brittany, only venturing outside for a short walk along the windswept coast.

The remainder of the time, the snowy-haired sixty-two-year-old French intelligence officer had pored over his files.

The rot can’t be this widespread, he had thought to himself. The treason this deep. Yet the evidence was all there.

Not a single agency appeared to have been untouched. Not even his beloved DGSE, France’s equivalent to Britain’s MI6 or the American CIA.

Worse still, the penetration ran right to the top, compromising a key member of the French President’s cabinet. The gravity of the situation was clear.

What wasn’t clear, however, was its raison d’être. Russia didn’t need French nuclear technology. Neither did it need France’s submarine technology. It was a rather poorly kept secret that the Russians had already stolen schematics for France’s new Barracuda-class nuclear attack subs.

So then what was it all about? Why go to such extraordinary lengths? The investment in this kind of espionage operation, not to mention the risks, was almost unfathomable. What intelligence did France have that the Russians wanted so badly?

That question had spun endlessly in Jadot’s mind over the last two and a half days.

Rising only occasionally to place fresh logs on the fire or to prepare another mug of tea fortified with cognac, he had sat in his favorite chair, trying to connect the dots and deconstruct the Russian plot.

But no matter how much of his considerable intellect he had applied, the answers refused to reveal themselves. Before he knew it, the weekend was over, and it was time to leave.

While a local taxi idled in the drive, Jadot closed up the cottage and then made himself comfortable for the twenty-minute drive into Saint-Malo. There, he picked up dinner from his favorite brasserie along the Place Chateaubriand, walked the rest of the way to the station, and boarded the last TGV to Paris.

As the high-speed train raced through the darkened countryside, Jadot ignored his food and stared at his reflection in the window.

He was no longer a young man. He had been with the Directorate General for External Security for over three decades. His time in the espionage game was coming to a close. This case would be his legacy.

Exposing the breach of the French Intelligence community was not only his duty, it was his chance to leave a deep and indelible mark. It was critical, therefore, that he choose his steps with caution; that he get everything right. There was zero room for error.

Turning his eyes from the window, he forced himself to eat. It was important to keep up his strength. He was about to step into a minefield. Tomorrow he would meet with a colleague from the CIA’s Paris station—one of the few people he felt he could trust. Then he would put his plan, as ill-conceived as it was, into action.