The main plot starts with the disappearances of an Office of Strategic Services agent, Jack Jefferson, and a Soviet Union cargo ship in Cairo. Agent OSS 117 is sent to investigate the events, since he and agent Jefferson share a history, shown in a short opening sequence and in flashbacks throughout the film. OSS 117 stumbles into a web of international intrigue, that involves the French, the Soviets, the British, separate factions of Egyptians, a goofy Belgium spy and even a splinter group of the Nazism from the beginning.