It is at the end of the communist era in Russia and Romania, Rowland Tymes is sent to Russia to manage the construction of a high tech plant, and then as the project nears completion he goes to Romania, to manage a similar project. Whilst traveling frequently between Russia,Romania and the UK he gets into the habit of taking small parcels and gifts for friends and colleagues, not knowing they contain top-secret information. As a result he falls foul of both the KGB and the Romanian Securitate, eventually being interrogated and then locked up in an old house on the outskirts of Bucharest. Eventually he escapes back to the UK, only to meet up with the informer in unusual circumstances. This is a story that could well have happened to many a business man of that time, traveling to these countries where the women are all one’s imagination would wish them to be, full of Eastern promise and mystery, and sometimes with near-fatal consequences.