Plot from Wikipedia.org
The film cuts to Salt who, along with fellow agents Winter and Peabody, interrogates a Russian defector, Orlov, who tells her about "Day X", an operation organized by a powerful Russian spymaster during the Cold War, which will bring about the destruction of the United States. Orlov claims that for this purpose, during the 1970s an elite group of Soviet agents were trained from birth in such a rigorous way that their psychological conditioning makes them "unbreakable". He mentions that at the funeral of the recently deceased US Vice President in New York City, the visiting Russian President will be killed by Russian spy Evelyn Salt, whose real name is Chenkov.
Salt, shaken by the accusation, attempts to contact her husband Mike, fearing for his safety. Meanwhile, Orlov escapes, prompting Salt to bolt — causing the CIA, and especially Peabody, to think she is a spy. She flees to her apartment and finds her husband missing. Salt quickly grabs essentials as well as a venomous spider. After barely escaping a pursuit on the busy Washington, DC expressways, Salt takes a bus to New York City. The next morning, now disguised, she sneaks into the heavily guarded St. Bartholomew's Church where the Vice President's funeral is being held and shoots the Russian President. She is then confronted by Peabody and surrenders but soon escapes the custody of the NYPD.
A series of flashbacks show Salt growing up in the Soviet Union where Orlov taught her and many other children to obey him and ingratiate themselves to the American government. Then, when it came to Day X, he would command them to strike from various positions in the US. In New York, Salt meets Orlov, who congratulates her on her killing, but questions her unauthorized decision to marry a foreigner - who might be a distraction from her mission. He takes Evelyn to a river barge, where he tests her allegiance by having another agent kill Mike in front of her. Salt appears to be unaffected by this, thus passing Orlov's test. He then tells her Part Two of Day X, which would involve seizing the United States' stock of nuclear weapons. The enraged Salt - who had gone to Orlov in an attempt to save her husband - kills Orlov and everyone else on the barge in revenge. She then goes to the rendezvous set up by Orlov to meet a NATO mole, Shnaider, whom she recognizes from her childhood trainee days under Orlov.
Shnaider and Salt (disguised as a man) go to the White House. Once inside, Shnaider suddenly starts shooting at Secret Service agents and detonates himself. The Secret Service, along with Winter, rush the President to the lower bunker of the White House. Meanwhile, the President, believing Russia is preparing a nuclear strike against the US, begins to transmit the launch codes from the nuclear football. Salt infiltrates the bunker and incapacitates the bodyguards. At the last moment, Winter suddenly picks up a gun and kills everyone but the President, whom he knocks unconscious.
Winter explains to an astonished Salt that he was also one of Orlov's Day X trainees back in the Soviet Union, and therefore part of Orlov's plan all along. Winter then uses the nuclear football to start the sequence for launching nuclear missiles directed at Tehran and Mecca in an attempt to provoke the Islamic world to wage war against the US. Salt asks Winter to let her in but before he opens the door, a TV news report reveals that the Russian President is not dead, but only placed in a near-death state from spider venom. Winter thus realizes that Salt is not on his side, noting that Mike's intervention at the North Korean ordeal allowed her to shed her loyalties to Orlov. Salt however manages to break in to the bunker, and after an intense struggle, she succeeds in knocking him down and manages to abort the nuclear missile launch set up by Winter. At this moment, another group of agents break in and arrest her. Winter, whom no one suspects as being a double agent, initially goes free, but moments afterward, Salt uses her chains to strangle him to death.
Salt is put on a helicopter with Peabody, and explains everything to him. A skeptical Peabody finally accepts she is telling the truth after he receives a text message saying that her fingerprints were found at the barge, confirming her betrayal of Orlov. They both know that there are more of Orlov's moles, and Peabody agrees to let her go, so she can find and kill them. He uncuffs her and Salt escapes by jumping into the Potomac River.
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