The story is a fictional tale of two men, one on either side of the Iron Curtain, brought together by chance and seperated by world politics who have their lives changed and endangered by circumstances that they could never have imagined. Much of the tale is based on real events during the dispute between the Coal Miners of the United Kingdom and the Thatcher Government that took place in 1984/5 at a time when events in Poland and other Eastern European countries were threatening the Soviet Union.