When CIA operative Miles Kendig (Walter Matthau) deliberately lets KGB agent Yaskov (Herbert Lom) get away, his boss (Ned Beatty) threatens to retire him. Kendig beats him to it, however, destroying his own records and traveling to Austria where he begins work on a memoir that will expose all his former agency's covert practices. The CIA catches wind of the book and sends other agents after him, initiating a frenetic game of cat and mouse that spans the globe.