Illegal Action (Abridged Fiction‪)‬

Liz Carlyle has been transferred to Counter-Espionage, along with her research sidekick Peggy Kingsolving. Although the department has downsized since the end of the Cold War, there are still spies: including Russian spies who now keep an eye on the international financial community as well as the wealthy, influential Russian "oligarchs" in London.

Liz is assigned to stop a Russian government plot to "silence" one of these oligarchs, Nikita Brunovsky, who is an increasingly vocal opponent of the Putin regime. Almost simultaneously, Liz and Peggy learn of the presence of an Illegal Support officer in London, one Vladimir Rykov, who is putatively attached to the Russian embassy. An Illegal is someone who operates (often for many years) under a completely fabricated identity - and Rykov, it seem, has been sent to London to help an Illegal now based there.

To protect Brunovsky from his Kremlin foes, Liz goes undercover and joins the oligarch's retinue. As she tries to determine who around the Russian might be willing to betray him, she has to consider too whether this traitor may not also be the Illegal she and Peggy are seeking.