故事介绍对抗贝鲁特的军事活动的背景。埃莉诺,一个美国战争通讯记者,遇见Kim,来自英国的她同事。一个会议让她的生活彻底改变:从此埃莉诺被爱压倒。然而埃莉诺深爱的男人,是被中央情报局追捕的苏联间谍,这样她的爱和忠贞要遭受严格的测试。Leo Cauffield, chief of British counterespionage, fails by a whisker to arrest two fellow Cambridge-graduated spies who just manage to defect to Moscow, resigns and becomes a journalist. In Beirut, home of his Islam-converted father, Leo seduces Sally Tyler to divorce her husband for him. Their happiness with children from both marriages is cut short a few years later, when Leo suddenly disappears; Sally learns soon he's suspected of having defected to Moscow too, which she refuses to believe, but will be forced to while Western secret services want Leo back or dead.