Years before, a charismatic professor named Bartel caused considerable anti-government unrest before fleeing the States just before being arrested. After years of traveling Europe working as a "third-string spy with a taste for the bottle" and now dying of cirrhosis, he wants to come home. Luke Garfield is brought out of retirement to spearhead his safe return but even as Garfield wonders why America would want him back, a puppet-master in the KGB in Moscow is busy pulling a lot of strings.