Among the gulag prisoners, an elite crew of sharashka are recruited to help the Russian government enforce state security. In the case of Lev Rubin, this means listening to recorded phone conversations among state traitors and trying to identify the voices. These prisoners enjoy a few benefits denied to their less fortunate counterparts, but most remain unaware of the extent of government cover-up which they are making possible. Although Rubin understands his role is to serve government corruption, he is only troubled by this information, having no means of defying his captors other than being returned to another gulag.
Rubin manages to isolate five suspects for the recorded phone conversation. After the final two suspects are arrested, Innokentii Volodin is convicted. He is a Russian diplomat who uncovered corruption and felt compelled to share the information discretely with the American embassy. Unfortunately the Russian internal affairs agency records the call, even though they couldn't trace its source. During his first night in prison, Volodin is devastated. His worst suspicions are now confirmed. He meets some sympathetic fellow prisoners, however, who soon take kindly to his speeches about rebellion.
Meanwhile Stalin is becoming an increasingly unstable dictator. He's paranoid about assassination, all the while de-valuing the lives of his inferiors. Volodin and his fellow prisoners, among whom are mathematician Gleb Nerzhin and cryptologist Dmitri Sologdin, decide to revolt against their captors and refuse to continue their work. For Sologdin this leads to the discovery of a secret cryptography machine he was developing in order to communicate with people outside the Iron Curtain. Unfortunately he is forced to build the machine for the Russian government now. The others, like Volodin, are expelled from the sharshanka and sent to lesser prisons where they are humiliated and punished.
