While camping in Pennsylvania farm country, Veil is accidently shot by a guard for a powerful food conglomerate. Near death, he's discovered in the woods by a local woman, the beautiful Emily Noonan, who takes him to her remote farmhouse and nurses him back to health. Finally, Veil has found a safe place and someone he can trust. As he recuperates, Veil learns that the small town is torn apart by Collective Foods, an aggressive corporation which is trying to buy all the land—by force. Unwilling to sell her farm, so the dominant force takes legal action, accusing her of blocking progress. As she grows closer to Veil, Emily is inspired to strengthen her opposition to the enemy.

After Veil's only ally within The Organization is taken away from him, he suspects the information in the palmtop computer could have been deliberately compromised all along. He debates the options and weighs the fates before using one more tip from the compact computer - the name and address of Clare Hillard, a reporter who covered the same sector where he took the now sought after "Hidden Agenda" photo. Arriving in Hillard's small Ohio town, Veil's met with a cold reception from her and soon discovers that there's a nearly identical man living there who has adopted his name, his profession and his photographs, including "Hidden Agenda." When Claire Hillard disappears, Veil is suspected of foul play and arrested. As charges of murder loom, Veil's case is assigned to deputy public defender Jane Butler. When he relates his complex story to her, Butler is intrigued and offers to help him corroborate that there is indeed another man posing as him. Veil knows he's in the wrong place and the wrong time when she returns from encounter with the other Tom Veil and has the negatives to "Hidden Agenda."

Veil is snatched away by the enemy's operatives and taken on a manufactured "trip" down memory lane. Then, at the hand of one of The Organization's most twisted experts, he is subjected to an elaborate combination of chemicals and refracted light which triggers his advanced hypnosis. During the dreamlike state, he is haunted with altered memories, particularly a troublesome time when, accompanied his childhood sweetheart laura, he was a photojournalist covering Nothern Ireland. Veil is taken to the deserted Fieldstone Mansion and endures a seemingly endless loop of flashbacks; he relives happy times spent with Laura when he was a 10-year-old boy and a teenager, then tormented by the painful circumstances in Belfast. During the ordeal, he is repeatedly confronted by the enemy's sinister agent until the distraught and broken down Veil agress to relinquish the coveted "Hidden Agenda" negatives.