U.S. correspondent Finn Waters risks his life in pursuit of a story he dreams will exalt him to the level of his famous journalist father who disappeared during the Hungarian Revolution. But Finn doesn't suspect he'll have to make a devil's bargain. With only three days before secret police will notice his absence at the 1989 Round Table Talks in Warsaw, he slips undercover into Russia to prove, once and for all, who massacred 22,000 Polish officers and members of Poland's professional class during WWII. He knows the truth will cause a global uproar capable of shattering the tottering Soviet Union. And he prays the acclaim will smooth over the problems in his marriage.

Of course, if his wife, Clarissa, or his editor at the New York Times finds out he has teamed up with a triple agent and become an international thief, they will kill him. The Soviets, on the other hand, don't use clichés; they truly want him dead. When without warning, the U.S. denies Finn's existence, it seals his fate as a spy without a country, as a man who will forever be looking for a way home.