But the performance is only the beginning of what Madam Damski plans for the handsome Professor Bazis. His time in a Soviet prison makes him easy prey as she revives his paranoia, plays on his regrets, and threatens his uneasy relationship with the British. But what is her purpose? And who drugs him and smuggles him home to Lithuania even when it is likely he will be shot on sight? Those strangers who imprison him tell only lies.

When a brilliant young scientist begs him to facilitate a defection to the West, Bazis must choose between securing his own freedom and helping the adolescent. But to rescue the prodigy, it seems Bazis must submit to more of Madam Damski's manipulation. While her motives remain hidden, what she wants from him grows ever more complex.

Bazis escapes and embarks on a perilous journey to save the youth from a life of slavery to Stalin's science, and only a step ahead, he assumes, of the prescient Madam Damski and her brutal allies. Although he faces dangers that would discourage a reasonable man, why does it seem his shadowy pursuers want him to reach the boy, who is now in Moscow? He is joined on his journey by others whom the Soviets want dead. The implausible trio have no reason to trust each other. The physician's troubled past often cripples her better angels, and she lies on impulse. The man they call 'the bear' has secrets, he's not sharing.

What is real and true is difficult to discern as they follow a path strewn with misinformation and invisible threats. His companions will wonder more than once if Madam Damski has indeed hypnotized Bazis. They cannot even be sure who is following them, or what awaits them if they succeed. The only certainty is their shared devotion to the young scholar. The only constant is the reluctant heroes' struggle to do the right thing while staying alive in a regime rewarding only loyalty and promising only degradation and violence. None of them are prepared for the truth when they find it.