Jeez Curwen, a British undercover agent in South Africa reporting on the African National Congress, has received the death penalty for his part in a job in which he should never have been involved. He is incarcerated in the maximum security jail outside Pretoria, awaiting execution. By the time his son Jack, abandoned by Jeez 25 years ago, discovers that the British government has washed its hands of his father's case, Jeez has only three weeks to live. But Jack, though young and untried, is determined to see the father he has never known, and to set him free.