Major John Smith

Major John Smith is a top agent for M.I.6 - the counter-intelligence branch of the British Secret Service - and is the main character in the novel. Smith is in command of the team that parachutes into Germany supposedly to rescue an American general who is being held by the Germans in Schloss Adler - the castle of the eagle. For much of the novel Smith is the only member of the team who knows the real reason for the mission; he eventually shares this information with the only American member of the team, Lieutenant Schaffer, whom he comes to trust and rely upon.

Smith has spent the two years prior to the opening of the story in Italy pretending to be a German double agent and feeding German intelligence false information. It is this well established cover that makes him the perfect man to...