One of Africa's many conflicts has spread to the Americas. Follow an ancient DC3, its aging and ill pilot, a Liberian Colonel, and a fleeing mobster as they struggle to make the aircraft airworthy and move a load of stolen firearms. They must depart southern Arizona, barely ahead of pursuing lawmen, cross dangerous Mexican skies and part of the Caribbean to meet a chartered tramp steamer near an abandoned Venezuelan airstrip. They are plagued by a failing aircraft, mob gunmen, corrupt government agents, and the pilot's encroaching illness.