This is a story of a man, David Bennett, who was mistakenly kidnapped by Russian operatives in New York City. He was flown to Moscow. Upon finding out they had the wrong man, they covered it up by sending him to a work camp south of Kiev in Ukraine. There, he meets a woman, Leda Miefski, who is a Russian political prisoner. She went through college in America as her father was a diplomat from the Russian government. Her uncle had defected to England, and the Russians had no one else to punish, so they punished her father, mother, and her. They escaped the work farm, making a daring escape. They keep their relationship platonic as they knew that to do otherwise would take away their chances of escaping to America. It takes four years for them to make their escape, and many things happen to them. They leave Ukraine and finally end up in Latvia, where they escape to America.