An agent drops off a fake Faberge jeweled egg at the British embassy in Berlin and is later killed. Suspicions mount when the assistant manager of the circus, Kamal, outbids Bond for the real Faberge piece at Sotheby's. Bond follows Kamal to India where he meets the title character, an international smuggler running the circus as a cover for her operations. A Russian general plans to raise enough money with the fake Faberges to detonate a nuclear bomb in Europe and then defeat NATO.