Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of reductive and stereotyped views of ethnoreligious groups in Israel.

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of violence and a mention of death by suicide.

The novel opens with airline pilot Rayford Steele piloting an overnight flight to London Heathrow. In the middle of the flight, he fantasizes about the beautiful flight attendant, Hattie Durham. He feels justified in the possibility of beginning an affair with her because his wife, Irene, has recently become obsessed with Evangelical Christianity.

One of the first-class passengers on the flight is a successful journalist named Cameron Williams, who goes by the nickname of Buck. Buck recalls a recent interview that he conducted with Israeli chemist, Chaim Rosenzweig. Buck went to Israel to interview Rosenzweig after the latter won the Nobel Prize for an invention that fertilized the desert, making Israel an exporter of agricultural products that it had never before been able to grow. Consequently, Israel became incredibly prosperous. In retaliation for the nation’s success, a struggling Russia launched a missile attack on Israel while Buck was there. Buck recalls the unexplainable events of the attack, for although there was extensive damage, it was accompanied by uncanny rain and hail, along with a firestorm and an earthquake.