A US Army colonel and a civilian woman supervising him must track down stolen Russian nuclear weapons before they're used by terrorists.
Two trains crash somewhere in Russia, one carrying a nuclear payload. A nuclear explosion follows the crash and the world is on alert... However, White House nuclear expert Dr. Julia Kelly doesn't think it was an accident... Special Operations Intelligence Officer Colonel Thomas Devoe doesn't think so either... Together they must unravel a conspiracy that goes from Europe to New York, to stop a terrorist who has no demands...—M. Belanger <[email protected]>
Russian general Aleksandr Kodoroff is in charge of transporting nuclear warheads for destruction as agreed with the West, but actually leads a conspiracy to make the train crash in Bosnia with another, after killing his own guards, to steal the cargo. Special Operations Intelligence Officer Colonel Thomas Devoe realizes what happened and concludes from his Moskow source 's silence that a plot is going behind the Kremlin's back. He urgently wants to find and recuperate the bombs, but is forced to cooperate closely with expert analyst Dr. Julia Kelly, who is politically mandated by the White House. They cross Europe to trace by any means the trail of the covert operation, fighting off enemy agents, notably in Vienna. The convoy already approaches the Caucasian border when an urgent commando operation on Russian soil is the last chance. Due to limited success, a vindictive rogue diplomat still brings the last warhead to the UN Geral Assembly.—KGF Vissers
Outside a church celebrating an Eastern Orthodox baptism in Pale, Bosnia, the Bosnian Finance Minister, a moderate pushing for peace in the ongoing Yugoslav Wars, is murdered.
At a missile base in Kartaly (Chelyabinsk Oblast), Russia, ten nuclear warheads that belong to a SS-18 Satan ICBM are loaded onto a train for transport to a dismantling facility. However, Russian Army General Aleksandr Kodoroff (Aleksandr Baluev), along with a rogue Spetznaz unit, kills the soldiers on board while the train is on its way. The Spetznaz unit boards the train by jumping on to it from another train which was running on a parallel track.Kodoroff transfers nine warheads to this other train while they are running parallel to each other.
Kodoroff then activates the timer on the remaining warhead and sends the transport on a collision course with a passenger train. Kodoroff hides his train inside a nearby tunnel to protect himself from the nuclear blast. First, the 2 trains collide and then a few minutes later. the 500-kiloton warhead eventually detonates, killing thousands of civilians and delaying an investigation of the accident.
The detonation attracts the attention of the US government. Dr. Julia Kelly (Nicole Kidman), head of the NSC Nuclear Smuggling Group, believes that Chechen terrorists are behind the incident.Terry Hamilton (Gary Werntz) is the National Security Advisor and Appleton (Holt McCallany) is Julia's immediate boss.Julia tells Terry that the nuclear blast occurred 4.5 minutes after the trains collided (as captured by satellite imagery) and is 100% sure that a nuclear detonate cannot be triggered by a train collision. Which means that someone deliberately set off a nuclear explosion.
Meanwhile, Kodoroff transfers the warheads from the train onto a waiting truck for transport through the Ural Mountains. The truck is disguised as a Red Cross vehicle as they are allowed to cross borders under the Russian nuclear protocol.
Former US Army Ranger and Special Forces turned Military Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Devoe (George Clooney) interrupts her briefing to suggest that the incident was staged to hide the hijacking of the warheads (satellite photos indicated people jumping off the passenger train before the collision, but nobody jumping off the warhead train as they were all dead). A functioning nuke is worth $200 million on the open market. Julia realizes that she does not know how many nuclear warheads were on the train.Russian nuclear command confirms that there were 10 nuclear warheads and a list of military personnel who were on the train. Devoe is shocked to see Kodoroff's name on the list as that would be like Ivanka Trump riding the subway.Kodoroff is deemed alive as intel confirms that someone has been calling his mistress in Helsinki, at the usual time that Kodoroff calls her daily.A call to Devoe's friend and Russian counterpart, FSB Colonel Dimitri Vertikoff (Armin Mueller-Stahl), adds reliability to his theory, and he is assigned as Kelly's military liaison.
Kelly and Devoe secure information about the terrorists' hijacking operation through an Austrian trucking company that works as a front for the Russian Mafia. They meet Vertikoff in Vienna and assume identities to visit Shummaker (Alexander Strobele), who organizes the Russian's trucking.
After Devoe tortures Shummaker for information (and takes information from his computer), he and Kelly leave the building and get in Vertikoff's car. They are chased by Shumaker's men, who kill Vertikoff while he is offering a bribe. Devoe shoots at the attackers and drives away but finds he and Kelly are being followed. Another chase ensues, followed by a crash, but Devoe and Kelly escape, after Devoe kills all the men involved in Vertikoff's death.
Information from the trucking company says that the nukes are going to Iran via Azerbaijan. When US spy satellites place the truck in a traffic jam of refugees in Dagestan, Devoe uses a ruse to identify it. He calls Kodoroff directly, who was riding in the truck, and makes him believe that a missile his headed for his position. Kodoroff panics and moves the truck, which is picked up by American satellites.This information is passed on to Russian authorities in hopes of stopping the transfer to Iran. The Russian military stops Kodoroff at a roadblock, but he and his men kill the soldiers.
Devoe leads an airborne Special Operations team from a U.S. base in Turkey to stop them. Denied entry into Russian airspace in Azerbaijan, one of the three Special Ops helicopters is shot down by a Russian missile, but the remaining two manage to locate Kodoroff's truck. Firing missiles which disable Kodoroff's truck, they then engage in a gunfight, killing Kodoroff and securing the warheads. However, interrogation of the group's surviving member, a U.S. educated Pakistani nuclear scientist Amir Taraki (Harsh Nayyar), reveals that one warhead had been sent off with an operative before the truck was intercepted. The scientist says that the last warhead is now mobile and fits inside a regular backpack.Julia knows that a mobile primary will still take out 10 city blocks and kill 100,000 people in a densely populated are with a yield of 1 to 2 KT.
The information from the trucking company leads IFOR to a Sarajevo address. Inside is a video cassette of Dusan Gavric (Marcel Iures), a Bosnian who disclaims allegiance to any particular faction in the Yugoslav Wars, but blames other countries for supplying weapons to all sides in the conflict. Kelly's further analysis of the trucking company documents suggests that Gavric intends to bomb a meeting at the UN headquarters in NYC. The invoice had a code 44E, which Julia translates to 44th East, which is the address of the UN building in NYC.Gavric arrives in Manhattan with the Bosnian diplomatic delegation, having replaced the murdered Finance Minister.
Gavric actually wants to avenge the death of his wife and daughter, who died in Sarajevo during a sniper attack. Julia orders the shutdown of all airports in the US, but Gravic makes it out as he was travelling on a diplomatic passport and smuggled the nuclear bomb in the same way.Julia tracks the Bosnian delegation's hotel, but Gravic had left by then. She knows that the backpack is leaking radiation and orders trackers on all streets. A copter picks up the radiation source.
Gravic and his brother are later found by Devoe and Kelly. When his brother is killed by Devoe, a wounded and enraged Gavric flees into a parochial school. Devoe and Kelly confront Gavric, who commits suicide, knowing that the bomb is set to go off in minutes.
With only seconds to spare, Dr. Kelly manages to remove part of the bomb's explosive lens shell and stop the primary explosion from establishing critical mass within the plutonium core. The primary explosives detonate, wrecking the church, as Devoe and Kelly dive out of a window. However, Kelly's efforts prevent it from causing a nuclear explosion.
Kelly later is seen swimming laps in a pool. Devoe stops by and asks her out for a drink, which she accepts.
