His code-name is Atcho. He leads guerrilla fighters through the US-supported insurgency that rages at the Bay of Pigs in the early days of Fidel Castro's Cuba. Captured and cast into the island's worst dungeons, Atcho learns that a phantom-like officer of the Soviet KGB shadows him. Inexplicably released from incarceration and still dedicated to his country, he battles through the bowels of the Kremlin in Moscow, into the granite halls at West Point, and finally to highest levels in Washington, DC. Atcho's rise opens doors into US National Defense even as the seemingly omniscient KGB officer holds unflinching sway over his actions. His public life clashes with secrets that only he and his tormentor share, isolating him in a world of intrigue among people whom he is determined not to betray - and then he finds that he is the trigger that could spark thermonuclear war.