On February 7, 1965, Camp Holloway, a U.S. helicopter base near Pleiku, Vietnam, is attacked by Viet Cong forces, resulting in the death of 9 U.S. servicemen and serious injury to 126 others. Among the Americans being treated for their wounds at the 71st Evacuation Hospital in Pleiku is Patrick Barringer, a CIA case officer attached to the covert MACV-SOG Team 36, using the cover name Robert Browning. One of the nurses tending to him at the 71st is a young Vietnamese woman named Nguyen Thi Hoa, whose older brother Nguyen Van Trong is an ARVN intelligence officer also attached to Team 36. Over a period of time, Patrick, a/k/a Robert, falls in love with Hoa, marries her and takes her back to the States with him when his tour of duty in Vietnam ends. Years later (2001), Barringer's wife and daughter travel to Pleiku to visit Hoa's aging mother who is on her death bed. After speaking with Patrick for the first two days, Hoa inexplicably fails to answer her cell phone. Fearing the worst, Barringer calls Hoa's brother, Trong, who lives in Kontum, a short distance from Pleiku. What he learns from his brother-in-law sends frissons of trepidation coursing up and down his spine. His wife and daughter have been apprehended by a PA43 special unit of the Vietnam People's Security Force, and are currently incarcerated in the notorious T-20 Detention Center in Pleiku. Using friends and resources from his past, the now retired CIA case officer puts together a hastily prepared plan to go there, free his wife and daughter from the communists, and bring them home. . . .