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With the Soviet Union on its last legs, Soviet leaders are desperate. They tell Nick, one of their agents who is a grease monkey at a garage in America, to activate a sleeper agent in Virginia to secure a univeristy economist's help in rescuing the Soviet economy.

Natalie, the sleeper agent, meets Nick at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello homestead and reluctantly agrees to maneuver Professor Eugene Thurston into writing a book with her about what the Soviet economic planners are doiing wrong. Smitten with Natalie, Thurston agrees to write the book. But between faculty rivalries and his dalliance with Natalie, progress is slow. And Thurston, unaware he may be helping the Soviets, throws another wrench into the project when he lines up an American publisher to publish the book.

John Westin's other books include The Anchor War and Stealing the White House. Another novel, The Perfect Candidate, will be published in 2011 by McNeil and Richards.