A suspense novel longer on think talk than credibility finds its fire in the hypothesis of a freebooter super-government of experts moving to power through efficiently portable nuclear power. Professor Roger Gilmour is neatly appropriated by his old colleague Charles Crane for an intelligence stint as confidential secretary to George Shelley, who operates international interests -- growth projects in under-developed countries -- out of an Austrian hideaway. This is the humanist element of his effort which appeals to Gilmour and his friend Gunnar, eager to better man's lot. But the fly in the ointment is Project E, headed by scientist Boleslavsky for whom politics is the art of enforcement, not of the possible. Shelley discovers Roger in his spying act but convinces himself that he has won him over to his supranational cause...and Roger sees fit to maintain the pose even after further probing reveals the danger in Shelley's position. A melodramatic climax brings Roger's fiancee, also in intelligence, in on the all-too-evident spying skirmish, which ends for our side in a sacrificial blast leaving the survivors tainted by the need to use force. Those interested in the political prospectus will overlook the faltering action.