London, 1939. Winston Churchill initiates a top-secret organization was founded whose sole purpose was to thwart Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. As Giles Milton recounts here, this guerilla outfit included dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins; Cecil Clarke, engineer of the the dirty bomb used to assassinate Hitler's favorite, Reinhard Heydrich; and portly pensioner William Fairbairn, the world's leading expert in silent killing. Giles Morton explains how this inner circle—aided by a group of formidable ladies—changed the course of the war, and formed the core of the Special Operations Executive.