Veil's link, a traitor within the "Organization," directs him to the idyllic town of Darby, New York, where a suspicious degree of cleaniness, incessant hospitality and unequivocal support for one local politican prevails. As he settles among the neighborly, strangely cheerful people there, he surmises that nothing in Darby is what it appears to be. After a local teenager, Michael, and his school teacher, Janet, caution Veil that something is terribly wrong in the town, he delves into the possibility that the Organization is employing a version of mind-control.