Former Vietnam P. O. W. Jacob Slaughter is sent to Hanoi to negotiate a trade agreement on behalf of the United States. Back in-country, he is escorted to a rotting building where he is outraged to find his former cellmate and friend, Captain Charles Wooten, still being held. Wooten's condition is pathetic but he's alive. How much longer is up to Slaughter. Slaughter returns to Washington and fights for the trade concessions Vietnam has demanded before they'll give Wooten and twenty-two other American soldiers their freedom.