General Hashemi, head of Iranian Intelligence Service, expects to destroy an oil dependent U.S, economy by denying it oil imports from two major supplies. He names his plan Operation Delilah. However, he needs permission from Iranian President Ahmadi to carry it out. Ahmadi suspects Hashemi will use his success to lay claim the presidency.
Ahmadi has designs on another term for himself and needs Hashemi's plan to fail. Utilizing an disgraced Iranian officer, Major-General Bustani, as a conduit, Hashemi's plan is leaked to Israel's Mossad. The CIA's Bill Barone confirms the Mossad's report that a CIA hit squad is headed to Egypt. Barone join forces with the Mossad's Ben Zev and the two head to Egypt to prevent Iran from succeeding. There with help of General El Sayed, head of Egyptian Internal Security, they need to stop the assassins. Only, they don't who is to be killed or where.
In the main Bazaar in Cairo, Barone spots Zephyr, who is in charge of the assassination team, in a crowd and he is captured. Zephyr's team is now useless and Hashemi has them killed. A backup team assassinates high ranking members of Saudi king's family and plants evidence to show that the CIA killed them. That evidence is enough to convince the Saudis to stop oil shipments to the U.S.
The destruction of the U.S. pipelines bring oil from Canada is successful as is the assassination of relatives of the Saudi king which leads to stoppage of oil imports from that country. However, Hashemi's plan to overthrow of the Saudi king and replace him with Ibn Kamall, an anti-American cleric, comes up short. General Hakim, a corrupt Saudi officer had agreed to sell to Hashemi the security details Kamall needs to seize the Saudi King. Hakim demands more money and furious Hashemi pays him in counterfeit currency. Hakim takes his revenge on Kamall.
The Saudi oil embargo continues. The Egyptians have an Iranian officer in jail, on unrelated charges, and Ben fabricates a confession for him naming Hashemi as the man behind the killing of the Saudis. The Saudis don't believe the confession is genuine and the embargo remains.
The Saudi demand for lifting the embargo is a purge of those CIA officials who should have prevented the killings. The U.S. president wanting a second term complies.
Having failed to stop the assassinations, the CIA offers Barone two options, neither of which he wants.
Ray has a Ph.D. in geology and has taught at several major universities. Subsequently, he worked at the United Nations managing economic development projects in Africa. While at the UN, he had daily contact with Soviet Union spies working under cover as UN officials. Some of them appear as characters in Operation Delilah although the names have been changed.
