[3] Steve Wintress heads to Los Angeles from East Berlin on the orders of his Communist paymasters.

He is to buy back a secret report held by Davidian, a defector to the west.

Wintress arrives to find that his contact has been murdered, Davidian has gone to ground somewhere in Los Angeles, while he now apparently has the FBI on his trail.

Wintress' attempts to track the missing Davidian are both helped and hindered by his local Communist allies.

He is now suspicious of everybody he encounters, including an amiable soldier and an aspiring dancer, niece of a prominent Hollywood film director.