In 1940, as Hitlers troops are marching into Paris, a writer named Serebin finds himself in Istanbul, where he is beginning to realize that, despite his fervent hopes, the world really has become a different place. Hooking up with a Hungarian secret agent, Serebin goes to work for the Allies trying to disrupt German supply lines--an eminently dangerous task to begin with, but his assignment is one that previous agents have tried and failed to complete....