Sixties Radical Author Rod Huxley has spent the last two decades holed up in a Denver apartment with only his cats for company, hiding from the fallout of his once-popular Cookbook for Revolution, written at the urging of former girlfriend and admirer Sara Caine. With the success of Cookbook came a certain, if fleeting, celebrity status and - via generous financial support from the unbalanced heir to a South American rubber fortune - the unpalatable realization that he was a phony. But his self-imposed exile is not to last. When he wrote Cookbook, little did he imagine it would precipitate a hostage crisis of national interest twenty years later. A terrorist is detaining a group of tourists at a Burger King in downtown Washington, D.C., demanding Huxley's presence in exchange for their release. Soon the FBI, led by the ineffectual Agent Fenwick, is knocking at Huxley's door, ready to escort him to the nation's capital. Unable to tolerate his talkative companion, Huxley gives Fenwick the slip and makes his way to Washington alone, determined to face the mysterious terrorist, whose identity he can only guess at. Who is this hostage taker, and what does he - or she - want? As Huxley confronts the answers, he must also confront himself, his past - and his future.