West Berlin, 1979. Helen Abell oversees the CIA's network of safe houses, rare havens for field agents and case officers amidst the dangerous milieu of a city in the grips of the Cold War. Helen's world is upended when, during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two people unfamiliar to her speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities far beyond her comprehension. Before the day is out, she witnesses...

Former aid worker Freeman Lockhart is blackmailed into spying on his former Jordanian friend and co-worker Omar al-Baroody in order to prevent an act of terrorism against Washington's highest power brokers.