A gripping new historical espionage thriller set in the darkest corners of the Peninsular War.When a dead courier drifts onto the Tagus riverbank, Captain George Scovell-brilliant engineer, reluctant spy, outsider within Wellington's army-is drawn into a covert war he never asked to fight.The body carries a fragment of a machine unlike anything seen before.A strange wheel.Meticulously engineered.Impossible for a simple courier to understand, yet dangerous enough to kill for.Following a hidden trail upriver, Scovell uncovers: - French agents moving through Lisbon's shadows, - Mills altered to conceal coded crates, - A web of watchers, couriers, and silent signals, - And whispers of a device capable of reshaping the war itself.To stop it, Scovell must navigate a city on edge, an army under pressure, and a river that hides more than it reveals. Every clue leads him closer to the French spymaster Vermelles, and deeper into a conflict where one misstep means death.When Scovell finally intercepts a key French courier, he finds something that changes everything: proof of a machine that can manipulate ciphers... and perhaps even probability itself.But the real threat lies further upriver.And Vermelles now knows Scovell is coming.Fans of Robert Harris, Bernard Cornwell, Len Deighton, and le Carré will love this tense, atmospheric novelette series filled with intelligence, danger, and discovery.