Charlie Heller is an ace cryptographer for the Company. He's a quiet man with a quiet job in a back office. But when terrorists shoot his fiancě in cold blood and Heller learns that the Agency has decided not to pursue the terrorists responsible, his life takes an abrupt turn. He was not a blackmailer, but he will force the CIA's hand. He was not an assassin, but he will penetrate the Iron Curtain with the intent to kill. Driven by an obsessive need for revenge, targeted for elimination by the CIA itself, his chances of success are one in a million. In a world of professional killers, Charlie Heller is The Amateur.