Following the British handover of Hong Kong, a secret long-term intelligence plan is revealed to the new Prime Minister in London – a plan to counter China’s strategy for world domination and its frightening growth in economic and military growth. But the biggest prize of all will be to set free one fifth of the world’s population from the yoke of Communism.

The instruments on which success depends are both technological and all too human: like John Dancer, the laconic American CIA agent who has been in Beijing too long, who knows and who has seen too much, and the lovely Lily Cheung, shy and haunted by her shadowy past.

And Project Deadwater, which pushes Anglo-American stealth submarine technology to its limits, demanding total dedication and selfless courage from the SAS and SEAL teams it will secretly put ashore on the Chinese mainland.

The most audacious power-broking game in history must come with the highest sanction. But no-one has yet told the President of the United States.