Before the inevitable CIA and KGB involvements come to light, there's special interest for history buffs (if nobody else) as British Intelligence chief David Audley tries to prevent radical-murderer Charles Ratcliffe (editor of Red Rat) from using a hoard of just-discovered gold for revolutionary purposes; the gold is supposedly treasure stolen off a Spanish galleon and hidden--at Charlie's family manse by combatants under Cromwell. To try to prove that the gold isn't legally Charlie's, Audley reconstructs history--with castle tours, research, and observation of reenacted battles (there are clubs that do that sort of thing over there). But the 17th-century footnotes can't conceal the paper-thin 20th-century plot--or make it any more plausible.