Marine Corps Major Amos Mead, a lawyer by education and a Special Agent for the FBI by trade, is recruited as an agent in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in early 1943.  His latest mission: Assess the level of cooperation among the factions conducting the war against the Empire of Japan in the Asian Theater of Operations.  Known only to a few, additional orders direct Major Mead to seek out a powerful Asian leader and investigate the possibility of the Vice President of the United States being involved in secret negotiations with Vietnamese Communists for a post-war alliance.