Plot summary
In Beirut, Lebanon, a Mossad operations (Caesarea) team led by Maya Shaheen prepares to snatch Iranian scientist Mohammed “Mo” Baramzedeh, who was suspected of developing Taniyn nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and supplying them to Hezbollah. When he skips his meeting with Shaheen, her superior Werner Davidai decides to eliminate him in a bombing, jeopardizing nuclear arms talks in Vienna, Austria involving the United States and Iran.
Senior CIA officer Meredith Morris-Dale is tasked with investigating Davidai’s information about Iran supplying Hezbollah with Taniyn missiles for a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to present to the Vienna arms talks. She reaches out to Quds Force lieutenant colonel Kasem Kahlidi, who had defected to the U.S. under the codename Atlas and is being pursued by his former employers as well as Caesarea. Kahlidi demands the safety of his girlfriend Kasra Khani, who was abducted by Hezbollah operatives ordered by Iranian intelligence (MOIS) in London, before he could share information on the missiles.
Meredith asks her ex-husband, former CIA operative John Dale, to talk to Kasem and inform him about Kasra’s abduction. He meets him at a safe house in rural Virginia when they are attacked by a Caesarea team. John and Kasem escape on horseback, but the Iranian kicks John off the horse. Kasem then reaches out to a Saudi contact who offers him safe passage to London. He tracks down Kasra’s ex-fiance Doctor Ramin “Roger” Guljarani, who was forced by Hezbollah operatives to treat her wound after the abduction resulted in a shootout with local police, seeking Kasra’s location.
Meredith goes to Beirut to continue her investigation. She surveils a suspected Taniyn smuggling convoy, which is also monitored by Davidai and Shaheen. Davidai orders the convoy destroyed in another bombing, injuring a CIA paramilitary team tailing the convoy and further ruining Israel’s reputation in the arms talks. Meredith is fired from the NIE and learns that her ex-husband may have been compromised by Mossad through Maya, whom she thought was his former lover; John had worked with her and Davidai on a joint operation at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt six years ago.
John goes to London and tracks down Kasra’s location at a public housing estate through Guljarani. Kasem, who had also found his girlfriend’s hiding place, fights John. Maya and her team also arrive at the scene and capture Kahlidi, while John manages to rescue Kasra in the resulting shootout with her Hezbollah captors. Unable to contact Meredith, he later reaches out to Maya.
Investigating another lead on the Taniyn warheads, Meredith is abducted by Caesarea and brought in to see Davidai, who lets her speak to Kahlidi. She also meets Maya, who later extracts John and Kasra from London; they decide to work together. Davidai comes up with a plan to return Kahlidi to the Iranians as a CIA asset by creating a story about Meredith being abducted by a Hezbollah splinter group named Août Noir (Black August). Not wanting to jeopardize the Vienna arms deal, Meredith’s superior Ed Rance reaches out to Iranian diplomat and MOIS officer Walid Zafir to facilitate a secret prisoner swap between Meredith and Kasem, to be held at the Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport.
MOIS major Siamak Azad, who had led the Iranian hunt for Kahlidi, tracks down Meredith’s location to a Beirut neighborhood and briefly captures her before Maya saves her. Hezbollah cell leader Nabil, who was originally hired to capture and kill Meredith while in Beirut, proceeds to the airport on a van rigged with a bomb to disrupt the prisoner swap. Arriving at the airport, Maya drops Meredith off and crashes her car into Nabil’s van, which blows up and kills her.
Kasem shares intelligence on the status of Iran's nuclear program, which had abandoned the Taniyn project, as Kasra settles into her new life in the U.S. John considers staying in the CIA after previously vowing to retire.
