Irina Kusak's recently divorced husband, Jiri Hr ádek, 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 ádek 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 ádek to his quarry, Irina herself becomes his prime target. As Hr ádek 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...