In 1945, Harry Townes was a spy at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa. One day he walked out with papers that put an end to Soviet attempts to steal American and Canadian (?) atomic secrets. Now he lives near Montreal with his wife and children. He writes books about the evils of the Soviet Union; his sole contact is his publisher Robert Goodier.
Of course the Soviets want him, to serve as an example of what happens when they are betrayed. Jacques Aubuchon has just shown up. It is his assignment to smoke out Townes by claiming he wants to defect, but only if he can meet with Townes. And so the rest of the movie becomes a cat-and-mouse game between Soviet and Canadian agents, with the question about whether Aubuchon is trying to bring Townes in to the Soviets or kill him -- or whether he actually wants to defect. Much of it is shot in Montreal.
Townes plays Igor Gouzenko, whose real-life defection was one of the triggers of the Cold War. Whether the story is true or fiction or somewhere in between is not clear. Someone speaking with a heavy accents, his head covered in a pillowcase, and claiming to be Gouzenko speaks at the end of the movie.
