The Ipcress File (1965)

Plot: With a criminal past, Harry Palmer is a sergeant in the British Army working for the Ministry of Defense under the supervision of Colonel Ross, with most of Harry's recent work being rather mundane stakeouts. Despite Harry being insolent and insubordinate, or perhaps because of it, Ross "promotes" him to Major Dalby's counter espionage section to replace Taylor, one of Dalby's just murdered agents. That assignment of Harry's predecessor resulted in the kidnapping of British scientist Dr. Radcliffe - he the seventeenth British scientist of late whose departure from the British scientific community cannot be explained - with Dalby's section now tasked to locate and recover Radcliffe, even if it means paying a ransom if it becomes known that there may be a bidding war for his services. The only lead that Dalby is able to provide to the team is the name Eric Grantby, code named Bluejay, and his Chief of Staff, code named Housemartin. In working on the case, Harry befriends two other agents in the section, Jock Carswell and Jean Courtney, and in the process of discovering that each may have other allegiances learns that there is a possible mistrust that exists between Ross and Dalby. Harry begins to believe that Ross gave him this assignment to get rid of him in more ways than one. Harry will discover that he in the process does become a target, he needing to discover not only the who behind it i.e. if it truly is Ross trying to get rid of him, but why i.e. if it is solely professional in he being in the wrong place at the wrong time or if it is he himself as an individual the issue.