Satori

Sugamo Prison, Japan, October 1951. Twenty-six year-old Nicholai Hel has spent the last three years in solitary confinement for the murder of his mentor. A formidable assassin, linguist and scholar, as well as a master of hoda korosu or 'naked kill', he has developed a supreme awareness of the presence of danger. Suddenly offered the chance of freedom, he feels it now as never before...Overseen by Haverford, his American spymaster, and the beautiful and mysterious Solange he must go to Beijing and kill the Soviet Union's commissioner to China. In a landscape primed for war this is a suicide mission he has no choice but to accept. Can Hel succeed in winning his freedom and if so, at what cost? And can he ever achieve his ultimate goal of satori -- the possibility of true understanding and harmony with the world? From the glittering corruption of Beijing to the darkest shadows of the Vietnam jungle, his mission will sweep him through a world of chaos, violence and imminent betrayal. For in those shadows lurks a formidable adversary known only as The Cobra, who strikes without warning and kills without mercy.