Some eighteen months before the “Tet offensive”, Nick Spree a U.S. marine fell into the hands of the Viet Cong during a night patrol in the South Vietnamese jungle. He was captured in the vicinity of Hue, was led by his captors northwards, across the border into North Vietnam; there he was interned as a P.O.W in a reeducation center two and a half miles south of the capital Hanoi. 

He is the sole captive in that well camouflaged jungle citadel; previous detainees must have perished by torture and executions, thus he the only captive there. But instead of solitary confinement, day and night harsh interrogations and torture, he is met with bearable conditions and an unexpected treatment. A young beautiful Eurasian comrade Lee Chen Woe her name, conducts his brainwash process in a peculiar and sophisticated method. However, the process progress is slow, the reeducation center’s commander and staff are frustrated, the hated Eurasian free hand with Nick, the backup she has is a thorn in their eyes. Meanwhile the war enters a further step – the escalation, the American air force B52’s raid the North Vietnamese capital. During this time Lee Chen Woe convinces Nick that she is not his enemy, he starts to believe that she has hidden ties with the South – that she might land a chopper in a nearby jungle clearance to rescue both of them. According to her ambiguous instructions he tries to escape during one of the air raids and fails. He is caught in a deserted jungle shack where he waited for her to join him. He loses his consciousness in the brawl with the reeducation’s staff, that were sent out to bring him back, and he loses her as well. 

After a few days of solitary confinement Nick is sent southward through the Ho Chi Min trail, to serve as a living decoy, to tempt his fighting comrades into deadly traps. In an unexpected almost miraculous escapade he manages to escape at last, and he is rescued by a pair of patrolling choppers. He spends a week in an army hospital in Saigon, tormented by doubt and fears, and by a terrible longing for Lee Chen Woe (Nicole, as she introduced herself to him in his cell). Did he stir her father’s blood in her veins? Was that the reason? Was she behind his successful escape? Or was she arrested as a traitor herself and put under torture? He wonders desperately crushed almost by his doubts and fears. But above all, will he ever see her again? The only woman he ever adored and worshiped the blue-eyed living myth that was but nineteen years old, when he first met her in his cell. These thoughts kept haunting him, while he is interrogated by the army intelligence and the C.I.A branch in Saigon. 

He is dishonorably discharged according to the instructions of the C.I.A Saigon branch and flies back home. Some twenty months later a KGB agent, contacts him in New York City, and offers him to meet Nicole again. The infatuated Nick travels to Montreal, to join the espinage ring headed by his ex lover and tormentor Lee Chen Woe that was sent to Moscow by her superiors, and was assigned by the KGB to head one of their espionage rings in North America. After several days of getting to know his new surroundings, he meets Nicole and becomes her assistant and fiancee. Things are pretty well at the beginning but while Nick is being prepared for his next mission, there is a turn of power in Moscow; Nicole is summoned back by her new KGB boss, but instead of rotting in Lubianka’s torture dungeons she decides to flee and takes Nick with her.