Secret Agent

British Captain Edgar Brodie returns home on leave and is stunned to find his obituary in the newspaper. The bizarre discovery signals that his life has been repurposed for darker work. This moment sets the stage for a covert mission he never anticipated.

A mysterious contact named 'R' offers Brodie a mission to identify and eliminate a German agent en route to Arabia. He agrees to take on the dangerous assignment and is promised support and a new identity. The offer marks the birth of his undercover career.

Brodie is remade as Richard Ashenden, given a forged death certificate, and paired with a ruthless handler known as the General. This transformation fully abandons his previous life. He enters espionage under a dangerous alias with mixed personal and professional stakes.

Ashenden travels to neutral Switzerland to begin the mission and encounters Elsa Carrington, a wife supplied by R who will accompany him. She reveals she pursued the assignment for thrill, complicating the professional arrangement. The hotel becomes a fertile ground for personal entanglements and espionage turns.

They attempt to contact a double agent, the church organist, only to discover he has been killed. In his hand lies a button torn from a German agent’s uniform, hinting at a larger plot. Back in the hotel, the button is dropped on a casino table, drawing mistaken identity into play.

An experienced mountaineer named Caypor becomes entangled when the button resembles his own. Ashenden and the General enlist him to settle a made-up bet about who can climb higher. The ruse uses mountaineering bravado to mask a deadly purpose.

Ashenden cannot bring himself to kill for real, but the General has no scruples and pushes Caypor off a cliff. The act demonstrates the brutal efficiency of the operation. The murder accelerates the mission toward darker ends.

A coded telegram reveals that Caypor was not their actual target, a revelation that both amuses and unsettles the team. Elsa grows distraught and decides to quit the business, seeking a different path. In the hotel lobby, she encounters Marvin and latches onto him for an uncertain escape.

The remaining pair bribe a worker at a chocolate factory to reveal a crucial message, described as the German spy post office. The revelation shows the message is addressed to Marvin, tying him to the German operation. Ashenden and the General renew their pursuit, following the thread toward Marvin.

Ashenden and the General board the same train as Marvin and Elsa, racing to intercept them. The journey crosses into Turkish territory, where hundreds of soldiers board the train. The stakes rise as the pursuit tightens and destinies collide on the moving carriage.

The train is attacked and derailed by airplanes ordered by R. Marvin manages to pin the General in the wreckage and shoots him fatally, turning the mission's tide. The conflict reaches a brutal climax as loyalties are tested in the chaos. The outcome signals the collapse of the spy operation.

Marvin survives the wreck and the General is killed by Marvin’s hand. With the operation exposed and the price paid, Ashenden and the other version of himself choose to quit the spy business. The story closes on a note of retirement from espionage.