As a result of a strange experiment, State Security Colonel Kustov was transferred to 1918 and ended up in the body of Vladimir Aksenov, a twenty-year-old journalist of a provincial newspaper, a veteran of the First World War. Kustov-Aksenov goes to serve in the Emergency Commission to combat counter-revolution and speculation. He skillfully uses the experience of his previous work and becomes the deputy head of the sponge. Soon he will have to fulfill a special task - to go to Arkhangelsk, occupied by the British and Americans, and become a scout behind enemy lines. But first, Vladimir Aksenov will have to go to Moscow and finish special courses created by Mikhail Kedrov, one of the founders of Soviet intelligence and counterintelligence.