Carlos Quintas, the democratically-elected president of an unnamed South American country, has been deposed by a military coup. He is in London, the head of a government in exile, rallying international support. He is also a poet of talent and reputation, in love with Kate, his assistant, who has a secret of her own and keeps Carlos at a distance. The generals have a team of professionals in London bent on kidnap and assassination. Hovering around Carlos are two Russians, who may be KGB, an American book publisher, who may be CIA, an elusive Brit, probably from her majesty's secret service, and his own few supporters. Is Carlos doomed? Whom can he trust?

In the bleak days of 1983, the Crimson Permanent Assurance, an accountancy staffed by elderly workers much like a slave ship, has been taken over by efficiency-minded corporate types. When they sack an employee, there's an uprising, and the building is unleashed from its moorings to sail across the (dry) ocean and take on the financial centers of the world, starting with an all-out attack on the large skyscraper housing The Very Big Corporation of America, complete with filing-cabinet cannons, ceiling-fan broadswords, and paper-spindle short-swords.