Jewish brothers in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe escape into the Belarussian forests, where they join Russian resistance fighters and endeavor to build a village in order to protect themselves and about 1,000 Jewish non-combatants.

After accomplishing the assignment of dismantling a human trafficking organization, the former military and drifter Jack Reacher goes to Washington to invite his liaison, Major Susan Turner, to have dinner with him. However, he meets her substitute, Colonel Sam Morgan, who explains that Major Turner has been arrested and accused of espionage. Jack seeks out her veteran lawyer, Colonel Bob Moorcroft, who explains that Major Turner has also been accused of the murders of two soldiers in Afghanistan. Further, he also tells Jack he is being sued, accused by a woman of being the father of her fifteen year-old daughter, Samantha. When Moorcroft is murdered, Jack is accused of being the killer and sent to a prison. He sees that Turner and he have been framed and also that Turner will be killed by two assassins. However, he rescues her and they flee. Soon, they realize that there is a conspiracy involving military people from the army and a government contractor that is a powerful arms dealer. Jack also learns that Samantha is in danger and Turner and he rescue her. They decide to protect her since a skilled assassin is hunting them down while they try to find the motive of the conspiracy. Who can be trusted?

In the 1870s, Captain Nathan Algren, a cynical veteran of the American Civil war who will work for anyone, is hired by Americans who want lucrative contracts with the Emperor of Japan to train the peasant conscripts for the first standing imperial army in modern warfare using firearms. The imperial Omura cabinet's first priority is to repress a rebellion of traditionalist Samurai -hereditary warriors- who remain devoted to the sacred dynasty but reject the Westernizing policy and even refuse firearms. Yet when his ill-prepared superior force sets out too soon, their panic allows the sword-wielding samurai to crush them. Badly wounded Algren's courageous stand makes the samurai leader Katsumoto spare his life; once nursed to health he learns to know and respect the old Japanese way, and participates as advisor in Katsumoto's failed attempt to save the Bushido tradition, but Omura gets repressive laws enacted- he must now choose to honor his loyalty to one of the embittered sides when the conflict returns to the battlefield...