Secret agent Nick Carter posing as a US government electronics expert, Tom Slade, is sent to investigate. Knowing that Russian agents will be shadowing Slade at all times, Carter arranges to switch identity with another AXE agent already in Moscow who is undercover posing as a Russian literature student, Ivan Kokoschka. Disguised as Kokoschka, Carter stakes out the headquarters of the Russian intelligence service trying to work out how it had been bugged. He notes that the building is under constant surveillance by men parked outside the building. He follows them to a Chinese antiques shop.