As a freelance CIA operative, Mick Scott was no stranger to danger. He had infiltrated the violent Weather Underground, and now he was assigned to pose as a Russian correspondent for Radio Moscow while actually reporting on the atrocities of Pol Pot in Cambodia for Voice of America.

In the process, he helped to liberate a young French/Cambodian woman named Lovea Duval, who in the midst of Pol Pot's murderous rampage, emerged as the leader of a counterinsurgency known as the People's Republican Army (PRA).

Utilizing guerrilla warfare, the PRA (also known as the "War Wolves") pursued Pol Pot's Communist army, the Khmer Rouge, across northern Cambodia from Thailand to Vietnam. Eventually becoming allied with invading Vietnamese forces who deposed Pol Pot, the PRA evolved into the People's Republican Party, and Duval was considered to be a prime candidate to represent Cambodia in a coalition government. But the Khmer Rouge, who remained active despite being on the run, had other plans for Duval.