Jack Hobson and Marta Stern along with two other CIA agents were on a mission in Kazakhstan to prevent the sale of a Russian nuclear missile to Islamic terrorists. The mission failed, two agents were killed, and in his escape Jack was forced to leave Marta behind. Two months later, the Russians announced that Marta had been executed.
Jack eventually marries Mary Jo, a psychologist, leaves the Agency, and has two children, Becky and Jack Junior (JJ). Sixteen years later he is contacted by Earl Wheeler, a CIA psychiatrist, and learns that Marta is not dead and had been repatriated after sixteen years in a Kazakhstan prison. Marta is in bad shape, both physically and mentally. Apparently, she was only able to keep her sanity by focusing on the fantasy of being reunited with Jack. Jo knows about Marta and insists on joining Jack in a meeting with Wheeler. Her interest is in damage control; she fears her family may be destroyed because of Jack’s guilt about leaving Marta behind.
Upon learning the details of Marta’s torture in prison, Mary Jo decides that the only hope for saving her family is by helping Marta recover to the point at which Jack can walk away. She offers to help with Marta’s recovery by preparing Marta to meet Jack. Mary Jo and Wheeler are successful in triggering a catharsis in which Marta emerges from a near-catatonic defensive state she had assumed during her extended captivity. Mary Jo maneuvers Marta to the point that she can accept that Jack is now married, but Marta is still fragile. In the process, Mary Jo and Marta become close friends. Mary Jo hopes that Jack and Marta will realize they are both different people after sixteen years so Marta can move on with a new life. To that end, Mary Jo convinces everyone that Marta should come home with Jack and her so that they can quickly get to know each other anew.
The situation becomes complicated when Jack and Mary Jo discover that Marta is a pawn in a much larger CIA game. Assistant Director Arthur Grant, an old nemesis of Jack’s within the CIA and the reason he left, is looking for a high level mole, a person he believes Marta may be able to identify. Marta identifies the mole. However, Grant’s continued investigation reveals that the situation is far graver then a mole. There is a conspiracy for a bloodless overthrow of the entire US government that is being led by the Director of Homeland Security, Miles Ebson, whom Marta identified as the mole. Grant can trust no one and shuts down his investigation. He appeals to Jack and Marta to assassinate Ebson as the only way to shut the conspiracy down, because Ebson would bring down the full weight of all the US law enforcement and intelligence communities on a whistle blower.
Jack enlists trusted people at Jack’s security firm – Ralph Teagarten, John Reynolds, and Mela Bainbridge — to investigate off the grid, in part to ensure Grant is not playing them. They confirm that Ebson had betrayed Marta sixteen years earlier, determine the conspiracy is real, and identify the conspiracy principles. Jack and Marta assassinate Miles Ebson. They are about to leave for New York to deal with Amos Silverstone, a financial mogul who was leading the conspiracy, when there is an attack on Jack’s home by five assassins. Jack and Marta repel the attack, but everyone has to go to ground, since they fear they have been somehow identified by the conspirators. However, they soon realize that things are not what they seem and are suspicious that Arthur Grant may have launched the attack. Jack and Marta go to New York to take out Silverstone. In so doing, they get a recording of him indicting Grant as a member of the conspiracy.
Meanwhile, Mary Jo sees a side of Jack she never knew existed. She is concerned that with Jack and Marta working together as in their covert operations days for the Agency, their old feelings for each other will be rekindled. She also has a great deal of angst about Jack’s role as an assassin, regardless of the cause.
Jack and Marta gather all the documentation his people provided and approach the Director of the Secret Service. They are then summoned to a meeting with the President. The President is clear that the conspiracy cannot be handled publicly because of the risk of a constitutional crisis and damage to US reputation. Since Grant is the most dangerous of the remaining conspirators with the capability of restarting the conspiracy, the President agrees that if Grant does attempt to kill them, Jack and Marta can take him out, which they do. The remaining conspirators will retire from public life and disappear into exile.
Jack and Marta agree that their old feelings have returned. However, neither wants to hurt Mary Jo, so they agree that Marta must leave. Mary Jo, however, realizes that if Marta leaves she will spiral out of control in a suicidal return to covert ops activities, which she confirms with Wheeler. So Mary Jo proposes the only solution where no one gets hurt: Jack must take Marta as his mistress.