General Stepan Povin is a high-ranking agent of the KGB.
General Stepan Povin is also an agent for the British MI-6.
In a fascinating twist to the normal cloak-and-dagger series, the General Povin trilogy is about a high-ranking KGB leader that passes highly sensitive information back to British Intelligence. His reasons are interesting and not always clear. He really doesn't want to leave Mother Russia. And he doesn't want the money, giving away to charity that which the British pay him.
In truth, Colonel-General Stepan Ilyich Povin is the strange oxymoron of being a traitor who is fiercely loyal.
He is also a very good spy for the KGB in that he has over years risen well in their ranks through hard work and through producing fabulous results no matter where he is assigned. Being the equivalent of a three-star general in the West, Povin has lived a hard life on behalf of the Motherland. Now in his late 50s or early 60s and still single, he has devoted his life to his service. While others of his rank make the most of their powerful position with perks and pleasures, Povin prefers solitude with the day is done, left with "his books, a little vodka, and his own company."
Povin's life will undergo dramatic change, and not for the better, but his mind remains strong and his will stronger and his ability to play others against themselves is as good as even, as is his ability to know when it is he that is being played.
Playing almost as important a role in the series is the British agent Royston, a man who is a duplicitous as anyone on the Soviet side.