Powell plays an American cryptologist who tangles with German spies while falling in love.

In 1917 Lt. Bill Gordon is headed for France when he meets and becomes friendly with Joel Carter, niece of the Asst. Secretary of War. Finding out that he is an expert on codes, she gets her uncle to cancel Bill's orders and has him reassigned to break enemy codes. In his new assignment he becomes involved with beautiful Russian spy Olivia Karloff, who is working for the Germans, and must juggle Joel's affection and his pursuit of Kerloff's connections to retrieve a stolen code book.—Ron Kerrigan <[email protected]>

Washington, DC, 1917. Newly enlisted in the US army, Lt. Bill Gordon, a newspaperman in his civilian life, is dismayed to learn that at the last minute, instead of being shipped to fight in Europe as he wants, he is reassigned to a desk job doing decoding work under Major William Brennan. He eventually finds out this reassignment was orchestrated by a young woman he just met and is attracted to named Joel Carter - she who used information learned directly from him that he is a coding and decoding expert, and who is the niece of John Carter, the Assistant Secretary of War - so that they can spend time together. Bill negotiates with Carter and Brennan that once he completes his assigned task - to break a code that the Germans are currently using - that he will get his wish to fight in France. He is eventually able to break the code, but in the process learns that the Germans have in turn broken the code developed by Brennan to communicate with their battleships sailing in the North Atlantic to Europe, most specifically to relay rendezvous points. This causes a problem as they are damned if they do and damned if they don't send the coded rendezvous point message to a ship already in the North Atlantic. They have three days to uncover the German spy ring and get a rendezvous point message to their first ship making the crossing. They are quick to discover that Brennan's mistress, Olivia Karloff, is part of that spy ring. As such, Bill and Olivia enter into a game of cat and mouse, it never too clear who is the cat and who is the mouse. This game is made all the more complicated by a jealous Joel, who only sees in Olivia a beautiful woman with whom Bill is spending much time.—Huggo