Malaya, 1954: Chin Peng, Secretary General of the Malayan Communist Party, listens with excitement as the early morning Radio Malaya broadcaster announces the death of a British Lieutenant Colonel and his two Gurkha escorts in a guerrilla ambush by communist terrorists (CTs) on the Jelebu Pass. Jason Rance, an English company commander in a Gurkha battalion during the Malayan Emergency, is the jungle expert tasked with tracking down the CTs. His tradecraft on jungle ops is unsurpassed and he is at home in the never-ending green of trees, vines, creepers and undergrowth. He leads his Gurkhas through the permanent semi-twilight – gloomy even when sunshine does dapple the jungle floor with shadows, and dark in creeks and narrow valleys at noon. Meanwhile, Rance’s boyhood friend, Ah Fat, a member of the Malayan Communist Party (MCP) and a government mole, seditiously edits a new MCP newspaper, Red Tidings, and passes secrets to a government preparing for self-rule. Can Rance and Ah Fat meet before the Baling Peace Talks and can secret files from USSR and China be handed over in time for the new Malayan government to take appropriate action?
