North Carolina, USA. Fort Bragg is one of the centers for training agents to work behind the Iron Curtain in the countries of the socialist camp. Two Russians – Churilin and Knysh – are completing a survival course in enemy territory. Together with “Russia specialist” Patrick Smith, Churilin and Knysh are illegally transported across the Soviet border. One of the spies disappears, the other immediately confesses to the state security authorities. Patrick Smith goes on a rampage. The ring around him tightens. He decides to take a desperate step to go beyond the cordon. But the security officers figured out his trick in advance and prepared a counterattack. On the bank of the border river the “career” of a seasoned spy ended. Across the ocean, the leaders of the intelligence department were forced to write off another failed operation against the USSR as a liability.