When Harry Jones discovers that former friend Zac Kravitzs life is in danger a debt of honour sends him on a perilous rescue mission to Taargistan a mountainous and landlocked former Soviet republic bordering Russia China and Afghanistan. Muscling his way onto a delegation of MPs who happen to be paying the state a visit Harry finds an unlikely ally in the stubbornly independent Martha 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 Zacs 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.