In 1940, Henry Faber, a German spy nicknamed 'die Nadel' ('The Needle') due to his trademark weapon being a
stiletto, is working at a
London railway depot, collecting information on Allied troop movements. Faber is halfway through radioing this information to Berlin when his widowed landlady stumbles into his room hoping for intimacy. Faber fears that Mrs. Garden will eventually realise that he was using a transmitter and that he is a spy, so he kills her with his stiletto, then resumes his transmission. David, a trainee
RAF pilot, and his bride Lucy are on their honeymoon when they're involved in a car crash. David loses the use of both his legs. Unable to fly during the
Battle of Britain, David grows embittered and he and Lucy retire to the isolated (fictitious) Storm Island off the east coast of
Scotland. Lucy later gives birth to their son Jonathan ('Joe'), conceived just before the wedding, but their subsequent relationship remains celibate. Four years later,
MI5 has executed or recruited all German spies in Britain except Faber. A history professor formerly acquainted with Faber, Godliman, and a widowed ex-policeman, Bloggs, are employed by MI5 to catch him. They start with the interrupted broadcast and his codename
Die Nadel. They connect the landlady's murder to Faber by him having used his 'needle' during the transmission. They then interview Faber's fellow tenants from 1940. One identifies Faber from a photo of him as a young army officer. Faber is ordered by Berlin to investigate the
First United States Army Group (FUSAG) military base. He takes photos and discovers it is a dummy and has merely been constructed
to look real from the air. Several soldiers try to arrest him but he kills them with his stiletto. Realising that FUSAG being fake implies that the D-Day landings will be in Normandy rather than around Calais, Faber heads for
Aberdeen, Scotland, where a
U-boat will take him and his intelligence back to Germany. Godliman and Bloggs realise what Faber is trying to achieve and chase him across
Northern England and Scotland. Faber escapes many times but his repeated killings (intended to prevent people from recognizing his appearance) allow MI5 to track him to Aberdeen. Both
Hitler and
Churchill are informed that Faber has the critical information. German Field Marshalls Rommel and Von Rundstedt, both already convinced that Normandy is indeed the target, lobby Hitler for several reserve panzer divisions, but Hitler delays making a decision until he receives Faber's intelligence. In Aberdeen, Faber steals a small trawler and sets out to meet the U-boat. Caught by a fierce storm, he is shipwrecked on Storm Island, collapsing near the isolated house where David, Lucy and Joe live. Lucy nurses him back to health. Stuck in a loveless marriage to the crippled David, she begins a physical relationship with Faber. David soon discovers both Lucy's infidelity and Faber's FUSAG photos. David confronts Faber, but after a struggle Faber kills David by rolling him off a cliff, and tells Lucy it was another accident. However, she discovers her husband's body and realises the truth. Faber realises he may be caught before leaving the island and so tries to radio the information about FUSAG directly to Germany. Lucy stops him by short-circuiting the electricity in the cottage, injuring herself in the process. By the cold logic which has guided his actions throughout his career, Faber should kill Lucy, but he finds himself unable to do so, being deeply in love with her to the detriment of his mission and of simple self-preservation. Unable to send a radio message, Faber attempts to descend the cliff and swim to the waiting U-boat. Lucy throws a rock down at him, striking him and causing him to lose his balance and fall to his death. An RAF patrol plane then appears and drives the U-boat away. A fictitious radio message is sent with Faber's call code, convincing the Germans that the planned invasion is still targeting Calais and causing Hitler to deny Rommel and Rundstedt the reserve panzer divisions. Bloggs comforts the widowed Lucy, with the epilogue implying that they later married. == List of characters ==