The most exotic sort of wolf hunting involves the use of eagles. It has been seen only occasionally in Europe; its real home is Kirghizia, in south-central Russia. The specially bred birds - a subspecies of golden eagles called a berkut - are flown by nomadic tribesmen. The birds weigh only ten or twelve pounds but can slam into a wolf's back and bind its nose with such force that the wolf is almost paralyzed, suffocating the animal or holding it down until the hunter kills it..." - Barry Holstun Lopez, Of Wolves and Men

At dusk SS Colonel Gunter Brumm silently parachutes through the sulfuric haze into the smoldering ruins of Berlin, past the Soviet troops that encircle the skeleton that the city has become in late April 1945. With the precision and skill that has marked his brilliant military career, Brumm has completed the first stage of a simple yet seemingly impossible mission: to evade the Allied forces swarming over post-World War II Europe and smuggle "Herr Wolf", the greatest war criminal of all time, to safety.

Less than 24 hours later a Russian team called the Special Operations Group snakes its way into Berlin's city limits, headed for the Reich Chancellery. It is led by the Berkut, Vasily Petrov, handpicked by Stalin for his ability to track down his quarry, and driven by the knowledge that failure means certain death.

So begins The Berkut, a classic story of pursuit, of hunters and the hunted, that pits two elite teams against each other - both of them brave, resourceful, of great physical prowess, and so fully motivated that only the winners will survive.