Group Captain Randolph Tremayne, RAF, the British Air Attaché and Lieutenant Colonel Bradford Rantzen, USAF, the United States' Assistant Air Attaché, both serving in their respective embassies in Bangkok, are embittered and disillusioned men. Passed over for promotion and beset by family discord and tragedy.
Both men are former heroes, but are now tarnished by their experiences or weaknesses. Tremayne is a gallant, but philandering, self-indulgent opportunist and Rantzen is a heroic, but war-wearied veteran, suffering nightmares over the time he was a prisoner of war in Korea and fears he's losing his grip on life.
A chain of deadly circumstances forces the two men to form an alliance to save those they love more than life, in a final desperate act of heroism and redemption.
