When a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv violently disrupts his life, Mickey Simhoni abandons his plans to become an artist and instead allows himself to be recruited into the Mossad. Slowly, he learns the art of spycraft the and painstaking process of building a cover, becoming someone else whom he resembles, who is presumed dead.

His cover story takes him to Toronto where he meets and earlier flame -- Niki, a girl he had hooked up with in Tokyo a decade earlier. Mickey is torn between loyalty to the Mossad and his intense feelings for Niki -- which the ever-resourceful Niki partially resolves with an unusual decision.

But still Mickey's dilemma persists, as he oscillates between duty and love, his complex operations in the Mossad threatening to kill their love. When his final operation in Algiers goes badly wrong, the rage and hatred engendered, and the utter humiliation visited on then, leads to a traumatic conclusion.