In 1968 Stephen Connor takes a job with the National Security Agency just to stay out of the Vietnam War. There he works in a purely technical role creating state of the art intelligence software. His success in that task leads to his transfer to the CIA, where he eventually connives to get himself an overseas assignment. So, in 1976 the CIA sends him to Iran to work with the Shah's infamous secret police, the SAVAK. It's in Tehran where he is first inadvertently targeted by the KGB. While in Iran, Stephen accurately predicts the Shah's fall from power and in 1979 he's rewarded with a cushy three year tour of duty in Vienna, Austria - where it is hoped he will stay out of trouble. Instead, this assignment to the spy capital of Europe only intensifies the KGB's antagonism towards him as well as infuriating a mole who lurks within the highest levels of Austria's counter-intelligence agency: the STAPO. It all ends in dramatic confrontations with an East German seductress and a psychopathic killer determined to end Stephen's prying.