An unlikely recruit, Anne Vaughn succumbs to the romance of communism under the influence of radical professors at the University of North Carolina in the early 1940’s. She joins the Communist underground in Washington, D.C. and begins delivering purloined classified information from willing government employees to her handlers in New York City. At first, the challenges she encouragers exhilarate and inspire her but when the alliance between the U.S. and the USSR dissolves at the end of the war and McCarthyism grips the nation, Anne’s life spirals out of control