A manhole opens at night in an empty street, and out climbs Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Hyde, Jack Hawkins in a dinner suit. He climbs into a Rolls-Royce and drives home, where he begins a meticulously planned scheme. Hyde prepares seven envelopes, each containing an American crime paperback titled The Golden Fleece, one half of ten £5-notes, and an invitation to a lunch at the Cafe Royal hosted by "Co-Operative Removals Ltd." He then dispatches the envelopes to former army officers who are presently in desperate or humiliating circumstances, and they all attend the lunch to recover the missing halves of their money. When Hyde asks their opinion of the novel, which is about a robbery, they respond with cautious interest, especially once he reveals his intimate knowledge of the misdeeds that led each man to leave or be expelled from the service.
Although Hyde has no prior criminal record, he harbors a grievance about being made redundant after a quarter of a century in the army and intends to rob a bank by leveraging the skills of the assembled men. Each participant stands to gain £100,000 each, and Hyde hints that the total could be even larger. The gathering reconvenes under the banner of an amateur dramatic society rehearsing Journey’s End, and the group moves into Hyde’s house where they live like a disciplined unit, enforcing a system of monetary fines—£100 for minor offenses and £500 for major or repeated missteps—deducted from their eventual shares. Hyde explains that he has spent the last year gathering details on the regular delivery of roughly a million pounds in used banknotes to a City of London bank.
To arm themselves, the gang raids an army training camp in Dorset. Hyde orchestrates the operation with the help of Lexy, Race, Mycroft, and Porthill staging a distraction by posing as senior officers during an unscheduled food inspection, while Lexy and Stevens infiltrate the camp to seize the weapons, aided by Weaver and others. The thieves speak in Irish accents to mask the raid as the work of the IRA.
Back in Hyde’s basement, the team studies maps, models, and surveillance footage to perfect the plan. Hyde also rents a warehouse to modify the vehicles, including the cars and a lorry that Race steals, while they swap in false number plates. A passing policeman glimpses activity at the warehouse and offers to watch it, but the group remains convinced he saw nothing suspicious. On the eve of the robbery, Hyde destroys the plans and delivers a speech that thanks the men for their hard work.
The bank job itself is bloodless and precise. The gang uses smoke bombs, Sterling submachine guns, and radio jamming to execute the heist near St Paul’s and escape with the money. Returning to Hyde’s house, the party is interrupted by the unexpected arrival of Hyde’s former commander, Bunny Warren. Bunny’s nostalgic reminiscences lead to a drunken pause, and one by one the members depart, each lugging a suitcase of his share.
Only Race remains when the police close in. The telephone rings, and Superintendent Wheatlock voices the truth: a small boy who had been collecting car registration numbers outside the bank has given the list to the police, who cross-check Hyde’s car registration found at the warehouse. The incriminating link is made, and Hyde’s carefully crafted plan begins to unravel.
Defeated, Hyde exits to the front door with Bunny and is surrounded by searchlights and a growing phalanx of police and soldiers. He is escorted to a police van, and he discovers that the others have already been captured as soon as they left Hyde’s house. The execution of the plan collapses, and the story closes on the collapse of Hyde’s carefully ordered world, as the law closes in on the men who once believed they could command fate.
