When Harry Jones discovers that former friend Zac Kravitz's life is in danger, a debt of honour sends him on a perilous rescue mission to Kargistan, a mountainous and landlocked former Soviet republic. Muscling his way onto a delegation of MPs who happen to be paying the state a visit, Harry finds an unlikely ally and together they devise a plan to break Zac out of the grim prison Bodima. But when the attempt backfires and he finds himself stuck in prison in Zac's place, little by little Harry realises that all is not as it seemed and that he has been lured into a web of international conspiracy.