[2] British political worker Madeline Hart is kidnapped in Corsica and former Israeli spy and assassin Gabriel Allon is soon invited by deputy director Graham Seymour of MI5 to find her as she is the mistress of British Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster and was made by her kidnappers to film a testimonial implicating Lancaster in order to blackmail him.

Mikhail as Avedon goes to Moscow with Gabriel's team shadowing him to negotiate his contract, and the gang abducts Zhirov who after torture confesses that he suborned Fallon on behalf of the Russian president, killed Madeline so as not to have Russian influence unraveled by an investigation, and demanded that Gabriel deliver the money to have a credible witness to the manner of her death.

Gabriel meets Madeline in St. Petersburg to learn that she was a lifelong sleeper agent activated into a political career to compromise Lancaster to win the oil deal, but she now wants out of Russia.

Gabriel and the gang sneak her out of Russia by El Al. Lancaster's party wins the parliamentary election.

Gabriel delivers Madeline to Graham as a defector and they stage an apology for Lancaster's affair to get Fallon to overcommit, then take him down when he moves to withdraw some of the money in Zurich.