The novel begins with the director of the Saranac research laboratory telling the FBI that Communists at Trudeau are demanding that he publish the papers as part of a plot to bankrupt American asbestos manufacturers. While searching for the Communists, the FBI learns that Dr. Norman Bethune declared himself a Communist ten years after he drew the murals. The murals are subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for its hearing on subversion at Trudeau in 1953. Its major witness, an art historian, insists that the murals prove Bethune was a Communist. This charge is flatly denied by those who knew Bethune when he drew them. In an obscure old paper, Bethune wrote that the murals were about his struggle against tuberculosis; they had nothing to do with communism. The Committee harasses a scientist at Trudeau, trying to get him to admit that the woman who became his wife was a Communist when she modeled for the murals . As a result of the FBI investigation and the subsequent hearings, two people die tragically, others lose their jobs, and the Trudeau facilities are threatened with closure.