In late 1988 Russia, a giant military aircraft touches down on an arctic tarmac. Special Forces emerge to escort a mysterious East African sample. What the sample contains is the Marburg virus, which is being transported to be weaponized, as the final doomsday weapon of the dying Soviet Union. Amidst the decay, bureaucrats push their researchers to perform the impossible. When a needle slips and pierces one scientist's glove, it triggers an infection that calls into question all that the Soviet system represents.