Thomas McKinley, a recently retired Marine Corps officer, goes to Honduras to research a book on the Contras. In the town of Danlí not far from the Nicaraguan border, he meets Honduran-American Elena Johnson de Vasquez – attractive, divorced, the well-off owner a local cigar factory, and very good with a gun.

While seeking information for his book and asking questions that nobody seems to want to answer, Tom and Elena arouse the suspicions of a local Arab marijuana grower and trafficker and become embroiled in an international plot involving a rogue U.S. agency operation and the Russian and Chinese governments. Interwoven with substories revolving around key foreign characters and against a background of growing romance, there is plenty of action as Tom and Elena defend themselves against assassins and take down the criminals behind the plot.