In 1981, Colonel Grigoriev of the KGB (real name - Vladimir Vetrov), disenchanted with what the Communist ideal has become under Brezhnev, decides he is going to change the world…
Discreetly, he makes contact with a French engineer working for Thomson in Moscow and little by little passes on documents to him - mainly concerning the United States - containing information which would constitute the most important Cold War espionage operation known to date.