The heroine of the story, Marta Nederman, was part of the Polish resistance during WWII. She suffers brutal interrogation at a Nazi concentration camp before being rescued by an American soldier, Paul, as the war ends. Barely alive, she is sent to a camp just outside Salzburg to recover. There she meets Paul again and the two are able to spend some time together, enough in fact, for her to get pregnant. When a friend’s visa becomes available the head nurse urges her to take the visa and get to London. Marta’s family is gone, she can’t go back to Poland, and by now she and Paul have plans to marry and live in America. She goes on to London, but Paul’s plane crashes and he is killed before they can marry. Marta finds work at the Embassy and marries a diplomat there, but it is a marriage of convenience for there is no love between them. However, when her past becomes known she is asked to go under cover to root out a spy within the service. What begins as a few days of travel becomes much more of an adventure than she dared dream possible.