Plot
In New York City, Ash is a secretive fixer, serving as an intermediary between whistleblowers and corrupt companies. He brokers a payoff on behalf of Hoffman, forcing McVie, the CEO of his former employer Optimo, to meet his client face to face. Hoffman has been intimidated by McVie's henchman and changed his mind about going public. He surrenders the incriminating documents to McVie, but warns the anonymous Ash has a copy to guarantee his safety. In disguise nearby, Ash ensures Hoffman safely boards a train out of the city and adds the copy to his secure collection of client material at a warehouse in Newark.
Whistleblower Sarah Grant meets with an attorney and is referred to Ash, who maintains anonymity by using a telecommunications device for the deaf to communicate exclusively via relay service. Targeted by Cybo Sementis Research Institutes, who are covering up side effects of their genetically modified wheat, Sarah planned to go public with the damning report, but is now desperate to return the documents and escape the company's campaign of intimidation. She is under surveillance by a professional counterintelligence team led by Dawson. Dawson and team members Rosetti, Ryan, and Lee trace Ash's call to the Tri-State Relay Service, but are legally blocked as no call records or logs are kept.
Ash agrees to facilitate the report's return while maintaining leverage against the company, providing Sarah with burner phones, detailed instructions, and a passcode to use over the phone. Sarah flies to Pittsburgh, unknowingly accompanied by the surveillance team and a disguised Ash, who counter-surveils the team as Sarah mails two packages; one misdirects the team to Oklahoma while the other, containing the report and a cash deposit, eludes them by being forwarded to Ash.
Armed with the report, Ash threatens to inform law enforcement and the media, jeopardizing the company's upcoming billion-dollar merger. Dawson's team agrees to leave Sarah alone and mails Ash a $500,000 payoff, but hides a tracking device inside. A recovering alcoholic, Ash poses as a bicycle messenger named Tom to attend AA meetings with his sponsor Wash, an NYPD detective. Ash enlists a deaf forger—with whom he signs—to build Sarah a new identity, while check-in voicemails from Hoffman reveal his guilt at having endangered lives by letting Optimo escape consequences.
When Sarah fails to make her own nightly check-in, Ash calls her in the guise of the relay service, admitting that dealings with clients have gone wrong before. He forwards the payoff across the country, ensuring the tracker's battery dies. Days before the merger, Ash is forced to arrange a dead drop for documents Sarah neglected to send, narrowly evading Dawson's team. After a final call from Hoffman, Ash reveals in AA that he turned to drinking in the wake of 9/11 and after uncovering corporate wrongdoing himself, and struggles with the guilt of being paid for his silence.
Sarah fails to appear for the document handoff, and Ash realizes the team have duped her into believing they identified him as James Keaton through facial recognition; to protect him, she arranges the handoff herself at a symphony performance. Racing to the concert hall, he pulls the fire alarm and rescues her from Dawson and his team. Ash tells her his name and sees her onto a train, but Dawson soon calls with a captive Sarah, demanding the documents. After nearly succumbing to a drink at a bar and calling Wash, Ash surrenders and is placed in the surveillance van with Sarah.
Dawson holds Sarah at gunpoint, forcing Ash to direct them to the warehouse. Ash throws Lee from the moving vehicle and fights off Dawson until Sarah subdues him, revealing herself as the leader of the team; sent by Optimo to recover Hoffman's documents, their true target was Ash. At the warehouse, Ash distracts the team with a failsafe before fleeing with a gun. Struck by a car, he escapes the others but is confronted by Sarah. Wash arrives with the police, having been summoned by Ash, and Sarah, Dawson, and Ryan are arrested, while Rosetti escapes. Ash offers to turn over the documents to Wash, the only person he trusts. Sometime later, Ash mails most of the $500,000 to the Tri-State Relay Service before boarding a train as news breaks of Optimo's crimes.
