Captain Ben Bass becomes involved in a global intrigue when a Windward Island Bare Boats charter captain is murdered after winning a race and, hundreds of miles away, a family friend is kidnapped. At the same time, natives are being enslaved in equatorial Africa. It is hard to see that these seemingly unrelated incidents are actually all part of a complicated plot that could have world-wide impact on the growing electronics industry. Ben and his friend Jeanne Hoch have only a short time together as they sail Abbondanza into the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the high-tech sailboat becomes a missile target.