Convinced that the other's evil intentions persist, they are embroiled in a game of high-stakes espionage; white against black and black against white. They move furtively, often like pawns on a chessboard, seeking to control the game. Not since the days of the "cold war" have the two sides relied so heavily on the organs of its intelligence apparatus to keep the balance of power in check.
The American government has learned of a new stealth technology developed for Russia's submarine fleet, a technology that has given the Russians a significant military advantage in terms of naval warfare.
The CIA directs operative Mike Shocklee to abduct the Russian scientist who developed the technology, but he can't do it without the help of other CIA assets. In a daring and successful exfiltration operation, abetted by a Moscow Station asset, Nina Lubikov, Shocklee's team nabs the scientist and clandestinely takes him to the CIA's covert medical facility located in Southern Virginia for interrogation.
Russian president, Alexander Medvedev, after being briefed about the abduction by his director for internal security, General Alexander Terorsov, is outraged. He orders the FSB to find out where the Americans have taken Dr. Mauldin and to bring him back home or see that he is neutralized and unable to help the Americans; he also wants the traitorous TV reporter who helped the Americans, buried on American soil or brought back to spend the rest of her life in a Siberian prison.
The Rezidentura, Russia's intelligence station in Washington, D.C., is given the task of locating Mauldin and Lubikov, dubbed the ML operation. After months of trying, the station is unable to locate them. The Rezident, Anatoly Smolinsky, the equivalent of CIA's chief of station, requests the assignment of a counterintelligence security specialist from Moscow to help with the operation. General Terorsov, is convinced by his deputy, Grigori Popov, to send Colonel Alexander Kasikov, the FSB officer who failed to stop the abduction operation to Washington. Kasikov arrives and takes the lead, but has little success ultimately employing the assistance of two illegals who become instrumental in the hunt for Mauldin and Lubikov.
