Irina Kusak's recently divorced husband, Jiri Hr ├бdek, is a high-ranking official in the Czechoslovakian secret police: cruel, ambitious, utterly ruthless. So when he turns a blind eye to her defection to the west, she is uneasy. Aided in her escape by a group of friends, including David Mennery, an American with whom she once had a passionate affair, Irina begins to feel herself truly free. But soon their journey becomes a nightmare. It becomes clear that Hr ├бdek only allowed Irina to defect in order to bait a trap for her father, a world-famous author living in secrecy in the west, but when she refuses to lead Hr ├бdek to his quarry, Irina herself becomes his prime target. As Hr ├бdek closes in and Irina's life hangs in the balance, David Mennery is drawn into a desperate fight to protect her and finds himself once more falling deeply in love...