The novel weaves the stories of two military men of two eras: aviator Roy Armstrong is a veteran of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War, while Walt Hardy, a player in the Iran-Contra Affair, has returned to contemporary Pittsburgh, where he grew up.

Roy has been stripped of his US citizenship because of his participation in the Spanish Civil War, and his efforts to regain it bring him into the arms of Peggy Arnett, a Pittsburgh steel heiress who hovers around any political cause ripe enough to carry the odor of revolution.

The fact that Roy has a Communist lover only increases his allure in Peggy's eyes, and she manages to use her family's influence to restore him to the good graces of the Roosevelt Administration.

We first meet Walter Hardy, our second hero, in 1968, when he is 28 and setting out on a career in politics; he eventually becomes a go-between for the Reagan White House in its dealings with the Nicaraguan freedom fighters.

Now the Oliver North hearings have Walt in the hot seat, but fortunately he has come into possession of a paper trail long enough and damning enough to take down some people far more prominent than himself.