Plot
A joint Anglo-American plot is devised to steal a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft (MiG-31, NATO code name "Firefox") which is capable of Mach 6, is invisible to radar, and carries weapons controlled by thought. Former United States Air Force Major Mitchell Gant, a Vietnam veteran-and former POW-infiltrates the Soviet Union, aided by his ability to speak Russian (due to his having had a Russian mother) and a network of Jewish dissidents and sympathizers, three of whom are key scientists working on the fighter itself. His goal is to steal the Firefox and fly it back to friendly territory for analysis.
However, the KGB has gotten wind of the operation and is already hot on Gant's tail. It is only through the sympathizers that Gant remains one step ahead of the KGB and reaches the air base at Bilyarsk, where the Firefox prototype is under heavy guard. The dissident scientists working on the Firefox help Gant infiltrate the base. Dr. Pyotr Baranovich (Nigel Hawthorne), one of the scientists, informs Gant that there is a second prototype in the hangar that must be destroyed. The diversion will allow Gant to enter the hangar and escape with the first Firefox. Gant knocks out Lt. Colonel Yuri Voskov (Kai Wulff), a Soviet pilot assigned to take the first prototype on its maiden flight during a visit from the Soviet First Secretary. The scientists attempt the destruction of the second prototype to give Gant time to suit up and start the first fighter, but the second prototype is not destroyed, and the scientists are executed by the guards. Fortunately for Gant, he escapes the hangar and lifts off just as the First Secretary arrives.
Evading the Soviets' attempts to stop him, Gant barely reaches the Arctic ice pack for refueling, making a rendezvous with a US submarine whose crew refuels and rearms the aircraft. However, Gant's last-minute refusal to kill Voskov has consequences; the Soviet pilot flies the second prototype, with orders to wait for him at the North Cape area. Gant completes the rendezvous and is on the way home when Voskov engages him in a dogfight. After a long battle, Gant barely manages to fire one of his rearward missiles and Voskov's plane is destroyed. Satisfied that there are no other Soviet forces chasing him, Gant begins his flight to safety.
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“Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—
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I want to make
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—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)