Josh Phillips-a former speech teacher turned pilot and mechanic-is almost killed by communist terrorists while maintaining helicopters for an oil exploration company in the jungles of Peru. Within a year he returns to Peru to maintain aircraft for the DEA as part of Operation Snowcap, where he takes part in daring rescues of missionaries, teachers, and DEA agents, where he and the crew with him have their helicopter shot out from under them and hide out in a swamp with 200 terrorists looking for them, and where he and about 90 other men face 600 terrorists, the trained forces of communists and drug traffickers, in the Battle of Santa Lucia.