In the fall of 1940, Winston Churchill shared an idea with Alfred Lee Loomis. In his New York Tuxedo Park laboratory and the minds including Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, Franck, Fermi and friend Nobel Prize-winning atom smasher Ernest Lawrence, Loomis personally bankrolled the radar detection systems that ultimately changed the course of World War II.
The Open Door takes the now well-known technology into the future at the National Ground Intelligence Center. This multimillion dollar classified device is about to be turned over to the National Security Agent but two parties attempt to cash in on it illegally.
Dr. Williamson identifies a VP about to steal this sophisticated weapon. He is frightened and suspects his home has been broken into. He arranges a means to stop the burglar with his own intricate device but is killed before he can report his suspicions, by an unexpected tampering of his idea. Robert Becker and neighbor, a former CIA agent, induces his friends to pursue this death.
An FBI agent, an accomplice in this heist, gets too eager forcing the VP to share the problem with his Chinese contact. So through a twisted arrangement, via an imported specialist from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, the FBI is burned to death before he gets his share of the pay off.
Two international terrorists over-hear and learn of this multimillion dollar weapon system and agree to steal it from a physicist traitor. This man has contributed immensely to the development of the magnetron but feels that he deserves a better retirement plan. He and his wife will exchange one unit for six million dollars in a New York City hotel. The plan would have succeeded were it not for two Iranian women who are well armed and spoil the interchange. Unfortunately, several FBI agents are killed in the cross fire.
The VP is cagey in that the trackers lose Dr. Julian Wicker as he heads for his meeting in Baltimore. It is too bad that two innocent people are kidnapped and ultimately taken apart to learn more about the possible magnetron exchange. Wicker is outsmarted in spite of having the help of private investigators and commits suicide falling through the glass ceiling of a restaurant.
Were the lives lost really necessary?
But the story ends with a twist with the six million dollar pay-off!
