AXE has traced the source of the leaks to a communist Chinese plot to bribe senior government officials.
The paymaster's identity is unknown but AXE has discovered that the information and foreign currency required to support his activities are being moved around the world via charter flights operated by a specialist tour company.
As Carter boards the flight in New York his cover story is questioned by airline representatives and he is almost killed in a botched assassination attempt.
At his meeting, Carter learns he is a “festered lily” – a man marked for death by Chinese intelligence.
Focusing on American heiress, Tracy Vanderlake, one of the co-passengers in the tour group, Carter tracks her to a Regent Street casino and then to a pub on the rundown Surrey Docks.
Li reveals that the money is a bribe to help reunite her family split between China and North Vietnam.
The tour group is invited to the villa of the Contessa Fabiana – aunt of the courier Carter killed.
A lion charges the group and the chief guide shoots and kills Tracy Vanderlake by mistake.
Carter and Li Valery are forced to drink whisky until they are drunk and are then abandoned in the desert, where their eventual deaths will be attributed to misadventure.
In Bangkok, Carter follows tour group member Jack Johnson as he delivers a bag of microfilm to a contact in a brothel.
As the tour group returns to New York, Kirby Fairbanks attempts to hijack the plane and have it flown to Bermuda.
The airline public relations representative, Dan O’Brien, boards the plane in the hangar to collect some smuggled pornographic movies to share with the ground crew.