The title refers to the Irish saying, as quoted by Devlin: “Touch the Devil and you can’t let him go” A plot to assassinate British Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington, who is secretly visiting the President of France in an isolated country location, is called off at the last moment.

Brigadier Ferguson, head of ‘Group Four’, a covert operation within the British security establishment, and answerable directly to the Prime Minister (never named, but clearly intended to be Margaret Thatcher), for counter-terrorist activities, is instructed to eliminate Barry, by any means.

They are due to be demonstrated at a British army proving ground, near Wast Water, in the English Lake District, after being flown in to a disused former RAF station.

His handler, Nikolai Belov, officially a cultural attaché at the Soviet embassy in Paris, but actually a KGB Colonel, arranges false documents, money and equipment.

In a rented car, he drives to the seaside town of Morecambe, where an anonymous contact delivers firearms and other equipment, as arranged by Belov.

They send Captain Tony Villiers and a small team of troopers, undercover, who kidnap Devlin at his weekend cottage, smuggle him over the border into Ulster and bring him unharmed to London.

Brosnan's cell-mate, Jacques Savary, is a former senior member of the Unione, and his son, Jean-Paul, living in Marseilles, agrees to provide facilities and equipment.

With lifejackets and other equipment smuggled in by Devlin, they plan to throw themselves into the turbulent waters surrounding the island from the ‘funeral rock’, to be, hopefully, picked up by a boat owned by the Unione.

Eternally grateful, Jean-Paul spirits his father away to be hidden in Algeria, whilst Brosnan is taken to Anne-Marie's small farm in the hills near Nice, where they can hide in safety.

Devlin and Brosnan follow, and force Belov to tell them where Barry is; He has hired a light plane and is flying to England to collect the sunken rockets.

Furious, he blames the Prime Minister, who knew the true story; that Ferguson needed Brosnan to be angry enough to undertake the job.

He manages, through various contacts, to gain access to the Prime Minister's office in Downing Street, disguised as a waiter with a catering firm at a Christmas party.

He could have shot her, but instead leaves a flower on her desk – a gesture he has previously employed, to prove that he can successfully penetrate security cordons, and escape undetected.