Irascible Pike of Logic and placid Hallux of Math enjoy quiet evenings at the fire, soaking up just enough Scotch to pour themselves into orderly dreams. Until one night a creature from Hallux’s past intrudes on their oasis: MI6 agent Barrington Barnes. He activates Hallux, long-ago mathematician to the spies, and despatches him to a technical conference in Dresden. Outraged anti-communist Pike insists on accompanying his naïve and trusting friend. Pike’s son, slacker and poet, having nothing better to do, tags along.

In Dresden they are soon entangled with Stasi agents, East German punks, and an ambitious KGB officer known as Little Volodya. All the while Hallux the mathematician monitors a number station, awaiting further orders. But the orders never arrive.

Does the set of all spies not include Hallux and Pike? If not, then why have they been followed, attacked, imprisoned, released, re-captured, and driven off into the night? If so, then why doesn’t anyone seem to care?