Harry Raymond, Canada's ambassador in Moscow, and his wife Marianne, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's-related dementia, are summoned back to Ottawa by Michael Riordan, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, where Raymond is interrogated by Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers Daniel Jackman and Greg Mahavolitch, and defended by his lawyer daughter Diana Marsden. Riordan is planning to run for the leadership of his political party following the recent announcement that incumbent Prime Minister Prescott is stepping down due to poor health; both he and his wife Juliet are anxious to avoid any taint of scandal that may ruin his path to the Prime Ministership, but the investigation takes a turn when Raymond reveals both that he is gay and that he knows the secrets that may bring Riordan's career down as well.