Thomas Veil – quite literally – loses his identity one night over dinner and begins to mentally unravel when he discovers his wife is part of whatever's happening. Placed in a sanitarium, he slowly realizes that he's actually the victim of a massive conspiracy connected to a photograph he took entitled "Hidden Agenda".

Attempting to avert his unknown attackers, Veil uses Dr. Bellamy's driver's license and credit cards as he sets out on a desperate search for answers to who has stripped away his entire life. Before long, he's presumed to be the missing Bellamy, tracked down and taken to the enemy's headquarters for Western Operations. There, "Dr. Bellamy" is instructed to make one of their subjects, Ellen Combs, comply with the same "conditioning" procedure administered to Veil.

Classified as the unknown enemy's first priority, the elusive Veil is apprehended and submitted into a chemically-induced hallucinatory state in which his attackers have complete control over his sense of time and space. Within their 'lab' setting, actors and elaborate sets are employed to convince Veil he's been in a loving relationship with a woman to whom he'll soon divulge the sought-after information.

After getting a job in a small-town photo shop, Veil is stunned to glimpse a picture of his wife Alyson as he processes a customer's film. He frantically pursues that customer to question where she shot the picture, but the chase lands him in New Phoenix, a haven for the disenfranchised and community of those who have, for one reason or another, lost their identity at the hands of the mysterious enemy.

At long last, Veil's torment comes to an end as federal agents locate him, reveal the identity of his enemy and disclose why The Organization, a well-funded group of political fanatics wreaking havoc with foreign policy, have been trying to destroy him. After Veil gives a sworn deposition to authenticate his "Hidden Agenda" photograph, he's reunited with his wife Alyson and his mother and is on the way to having himself a merry little Christmas, until he gets a form of 'coal in his stocking'.

A dissenter from The Organization surreptitously contacts Veil and supplies him with documentation that one of its highest-ranking members, Richard Grace, is the one primarily responsible for the decision to erase his identity.

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.

Following up on secret information provided by the FBI, Tom finds two valuable clues: the original untouched photo of "Hidden Agenda" and a key to the safe house inhabited by the agent who gathered the data – an operative code named 'Gemini'.