The main character is Nathaniel "Nat" Dickstein, a victim of experimentation in the Nazi concentration camps who later becomes an Israeli agent; also the American Alan "Al" Cortone, of Italian origin, whose life Dickstein saved in Sicily; and the Russian chessmaster David Rostov, who subsequently joins the KGB.
He assigns his best agent, Nat Dickstein, to steal about two hundred tons of uranium ore for Israel, to pre-empt the potential Egyptian threat and to enable them to build a nuclear bomb themselves.
For practical reasons, and also because in 1948 he successfully hijacked an arms shipment at sea, Dickstein decides to make the uranium theft from a maritime transport of yellowcake ore, from a freighter called the Coparelli.
A short time later, Hassan visits the Professor (whose sympathies were already pro-Arab), and tells him of Dickstein's true activities and plans.
To facilitate the robbery at sea, Dickstein acquires the Stromberg, a sister ship of the Coparelli, and founds a bogus maritime company.
Suza is able to create a diversion, enabling Dickstein to rescue her and destroy the Karla by means of a magnetic mine.
The book concludes with a newspaper article appearing in the Daily Telegraph in 1977, revealing that Israel is suspected of involvement in the disappearance at sea of the uranium shipment nine years earlier.