During the 1950s, a man's car trip from L.A. to Texas turns into a Cold-War espionage drama after his car breaks down and he accepts a lift from a stranger.

After his car breaks down during a trip from Los Angeles to Texas, John Emmett meets another motorist, Ann Nicholson, who offers him a lift. He learns that she is running away from her physician, Dr. Simmons, and the police who want to question her about a murdered Central Intelligence Agent in Los Angeles. Anne, as it also turns out, is a native of Berlin, Germany. She had come into possession of a valuable secret formula for a 4000-mile-per-hour rocket, which is written on the reverse side of a small pocket mirror she carries. She wants to deliver this to a scientist in the United States, but the scientist is an enemy agent, as is her doctor, and they and the F.B.I are after her.—Les Adams <[email protected]>

While driving from California to New Mexico, Ann Nicholson picks up John Emmett at a truck stop. She is looking for someone to share the driving with her so that she can get to her ultimate destination, Santa Fe, quicker. He agrees to accompany her, he being on a month-long vacation and heading to a fishing lodge by bus in that general direction anyway. He soon begins to wonder if it was a wise decision. They are first stopped by a nurse claiming that Ann is under medical psychological care and then by the police, who are looking for her for questioning on a serious incident back in Los Angeles. Because of these encounters, she tells him her story: that she is indeed recovering from a stress related condition, but that that stress was brought about by her need to get some politically sensitive military information to Santa Fe. Wavering between believing and not believing her story, John decides to trust her and go along with her as far as the story plays itself out, all the while the two are being chased by various people.—Huggo

Off on vacation, John Emmett is stranded in Jefferson after his car gives out. Innocently accepting a lift east from Ann Nicholson he soon finds himself dealing with the nurse who has been handling her nervous breakdown and with the police after her for murder. Then Ann tells him her own story of East Berlin espionage.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}