First broadcast 5th September 1983.

1901: Bearing top secret Russian oil industry surveys, "Professor" Sigmund Rosenblum is taken from a train and held under house arrest in Baku, Russian Empire. Margaret Reilly, the unhappy young wife of an elderly British clergyman, assists with Rosenblum's escape into the Caucasus, but suffers 18 months imprisonment for her efforts. After they meet again in London and reconcile, she becomes a wealthy widow and they marry. Rosenblum, enraged at the clumsy murder of his prostitute-mistress, falls afoul of the notorious arms-merchant Basil Zaharoff, but the two come to an accommodation. Rosenblum now becomes "Sidney Reilly" (one of a series of aliases) and at the behest of Captain Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the British intelligence chief (known as "C"), he and Margaret embark together on a new espionage mission in the Far East.

Cast:
Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly
Peter Egan as Major Charles Fothergill
Ian Charleson as R. H. Bruce Lockhart
Norman Rodway as Captain Mansfield Smith-Cumming
Tom Bell as Felix Dzerzhinsky
David Burke as Joseph Stalin
Kenneth Cranham as Vladimir Lenin
Leo McKern as Basil Zaharoff
Jeananne Crowley as Margaret Callaghan Reilly (wife #1)
Derek Newark as General Stoessel
Donald Morley as Stanley Baldwin
John Castle as Count Massino
Celia Gregory as Nadina "Nadia" Massino (wife #2)
Brian Protheroe as Shasha Grammaticoff
Joanne Whalley as Ulla Glass
Clive Merrison as Boris Savinkov
Laura Davenport as Nelly "Pepita" Burton (wife #3)
Joanne Pearce as Caryll Houselander
Michael Aldridge as Vladimir Nikolayevich Orlov
Victoria Harwood as Natalia
Anthony Higgins as Mikhail Trilisser
John Rhys-Davies as Tanyatos
Sebastian Shaw as Reverend Thomas
Bill Nighy as Goschen
David Ryall as Herr Glass
David Suchet as Inspector Tsientsin
Alex McCrindle as Captain MacDougal
Alfred Molina as Yakov Blumkin
Peter Howell as Baron Rothschild
Lindsay Duncan as The Plugger
Hugh Fraser as George Hill
Malcolm Terris as Sykes
Diana Hardcastle as Anna
Prentis Hancock as Boris Souvarine
Geoffrey Whitehead as Count Lubinsky
Aubrey Morris as Mendrovovich
Phil Smeeton as Chekist
Michael Angelis as Artur Artuzov
Alan Downer as Eduard Berzin
Alan Bowerman as Lieberman
Sara Clee as Fanya "Fanny" Kaplan