In 1991, the United States and China are close to a major trade agreement, with the President due to visit China to seal the deal. The CIA learns that its asset Tom Bishop has been arrested at a People’s Liberation Army prison in Suzhou and will be executed in 24 hours, unless the US government claims him and bargains for his release. Bishop’s actions, unsanctioned by the CIA, risk jeopardizing the agreement. Spy Game 2001 full
A group of CIA executives summon Nathan Muir, a veteran case officer and Bishop’s mentor, who plans to retire from the agency at the end of the day. While purportedly interviewing Muir to learn his history with Bishop, the executives seek a pretext for not intervening on Bishop’s imprisonment. Unknown to them, Muir was tipped off about Bishop’s capture by a fellow CIA veteran Harry Duncan in Hong Kong.
Muir leaks the story to CNN through an MI6 contact in Hong Kong, believing that public pressure would force American intervention. They are stalled briefly before a phone call to the FCC from CIA Deputy Director Charles Harker results in CNN retracting the story as a hoax.
Muir met Bishop in 1975, when Bishop was a Marine Scout Sniper during the Vietnam War. Muir gives Bishop a mission to eliminate a high-ranking North Vietnamese military officer. Bishop and his spotter Tran are able to assassinate the target despite being compromised, though Bishop takes out a pursuing enemy attack chopper. Bishop escorts the now wounded Tran to safety, impressing Muir. In 1976, Muir recruited Bishop as a CIA asset in Berlin, where Bishop was tasked with procuring assets in East Germany. Then he discusses Bishop’s spy work in Beirut in 1985, during the War of the Camps, which was their last mission together.
In a series of flashbacks, Bishop is troubled by Muir’s conviction that civilian “assets” who endangered a mission should be sacrificed to preserve the “greater good.” After Bishop attempts to countermand Muir during a mission to save the life of an asset, Muir emphasizes that he will not tolerate dissent, and would not rescue Bishop if he was captured going “off the reservation”.