1894. In a Paris hospital, a modest bookbinder dies from a dagger wound—having left a staggering sum of one hundred thousand francs to an orphanage in distant Stavropol, Russia. The task of uncovering the origin of this money falls to a government official on special assignments of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Klim Ardashyev. Posing as a reporter at the first international automobile race in history, the diplomat finds himself at the center of an anarchist conspiracy and prevents an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister of France. However, the true solution to the mystery leads Ardashyev back to his homeland…