Senim Silla is a CIA employee who works in a clandestine office in Detroit. He is not a field agent, and indeed is disdainful of Agency discipline; his job is to read books, newspapers, and magazines from around the world looking for hidden elaborations of known CIA operations. One day, when he should be in the office, he slips out a basement entrance for lunch. In his absence a group of armed men, led by an assassin later identified as Joubert, gains entrance to the office and kills everyone there. Silla returns, realizes he is in grave danger, and telephones a phone number at CIA headquarters he has been given for emergencies.

When he phones in (and remembers to give his code name "Radar"), he is placed under the direction of Higgins, a top level agent. Higgins directs Silla to keep quiet and they will send an agent out named Wicks to "bring him in" to protection.