| Director | Sriram Raghavan |
|---|---|
| Budget | ₹60 crore |
| Box office | ₹73 crore |
Somewhere in a Taliban camp in the Dasht-e-Madar desert, in Afghanistan, ISI official Col. Huzefa is interrogating a captured man presumed to be a RAW agent. The man gives details of RAW's operations in Afghanistan in exchange for money and safe passage across the border. In doing so, he betrays his colleague, Major Rajan, who has also infiltrated the camp. This is, however, revealed to be a ruse, as both overpower their captors and fight their way out of the camp. Along the way, they rescue a girl called Farah, who was being held hostage.
Later, the captured man who escaped with Rajan is revealed, in New Delhi, to be Agent Vinod, who is shown a video message recorded by Rajan from Russia mentioning '242' just moments before being shot dead and tasked by RAW chief Hassan Nawaz to find out what '242' is. Vinod travels to St. Petersburg to intercept criminal don Abu Nazer and is almost captured, but manages to escape killing Abu in the process and goes to Tangier, Morocco. He assumes the identity of Freddie Khambatta and meets the Russian mafia boss David Kazaan and his personal Pakistani doctor, Ruby Mendes. Vinod manages to convince Kazaan that he is indeed Freddie and hacks his phone. He gets closer to Ruby to find out what '242' is and finds out that her name is actually Iram Parveen Bilal, and she is a British-Pakistani working undercover for the ISI. He obtains an invitation card for a private auction and learns that many international businessmen, some of them terrorist groups, are converging at an antiques auction in Marrakesh to purchase '242'.
At the auction, Vinod learns that '242' is actually the detonator for a nuclear device, and runs into businessman and philanthropist Jagdishwar Metla, with whom he has a disturbing conversation. A bidding war ensues, and Kazaan manages to secure the detonator through his Russian girlfriend. Eventually, when ISI chief Col. Iftekhar Ahmed is later shot dead in Pakistan by Col. Huzefa moments after being informed of a few defectors, it turns out that a group of rogue ISI colonels, including Huzefa, is planning a nuclear attack on India. Back in Morocco, Kazaan locks the detonator with a password, and hands it over to the mysterious 'Colonel', who has arrived in Morocco. Iram finds out that Vinod is a RAW agent and both agree to work together to prevent the nuclear device from falling into the wrong hands. 'Colonel' captures Ruby and asks her to reveal the whereabouts of Vinod; he then blackmails Vinod's contact into deceitfully retrieving the detonator and later has him killed before Vinod, who realizes the betrayal, can question him at gunpoint. Shortly afterwards, he is attacked and admitted to a hospital. He clears his way out of the hospital to find Iram. 'Colonel', now having the detonator, reaches Riga, Latvia to acquire the bomb. He is joined by rogue mercenary Jimmy, who is to detonate the bomb.
'Colonel' enlists Iram to help his men transport the bomb out of Latvia and tries to kill her, but fails. Vinod and Iram join hands again and try to capture the 'Colonel' and the bomb and reach Karachi, where they bump into Farah as she gets them access inside a function attended by Col. Pasha, only for Vinod and Iram to be captured by Col. Huzefa and nevertheless manage to escape. Meanwhile, elsewhere, the house of an old man known only as 'Professor', who has links to 'Colonel', is infiltrated by the RAW team with Iram visiting in the name of 'Colonel'; despite 'Colonel' leaking her allegiances to him, when 'Professor' tries to kill Iram, he is neutralized by a team of special forces soldiers. Later, while putting two and two together through artifacts recovered from 'Professor' at his house, they learn of a plot to smuggle the nuclear device from Karachi into India, via the sea route, and learn that the target of the bomb is New Delhi. They make it to Delhi, where Jimmy has already reached, and try to locate the bomb, but fail when Jimmy sets off a grenade and Vinod loses him in the fracas. Iram runs into 'Colonel', disguised as a pilot, again when she bumps into Metla and is fatally shot, but points him out to Indian security forces, who spring into action when he holds Metla at gunpoint; Metla manages to free himself from 'Colonel', and in a shootout, his head is chopped to pieces by the helicopter blades. Eventually, Vinod successfully tracks down the bomb to a restaurant, strategically killing Jimmy, and takes it up in an NSG helicopter to detonate it as far away from the city as possible since nobody knows the password; he asks Hassan to connect him to Iram, who is being treated for her gunshot wounds. Iram realises the password to the detonator was set by Kazaan and asks Vinod to try the name of Kazaan's camel - "Zilleh". The bomb is successfully defused, though Iram succumbs to her gunshot wounds.
Vinod meets up with Hassan, who informs him of a flashdrive recovered from 'Colonel'; he later visits Metla, revealing to him that he knows Metla has had a hand in the conspiracy as its mastermind since he had struck a deal with 'Colonel' to earn the Zeus Group millions of dollars and orchestrated the nuclear attack for his own benefit; Metla, however, mocks him, claiming geopolitical affairs like these are too complex for "lowkey" officers like him to understand. Unbeknownst to Metla, Vinod is secretly recording the conversation through a wire, with the Lashkar-e-Taiba's London cell listening in since minutes before their meeting. Realizing that they have been manipulated into almost starting a war with India, with the Pakistani government cracking down on them, the cell sends a suicide bomber to assassinate Metla at a function in his honour, even as Vinod proclaims to Metla that he must die "like a hero". Metla is killed, but posthumously feted as a great philanthropist.