During the chaotic last days of World War II, two SS officers use great ingenuity to desert the German army and sail with two dozen stolen tanks to a South American republic. Decades later the same regime, facing a mortal threat, hires a British shipping executive and a former British army captain to perform a daring act of maritime piracy. As the two young Englishmen ally with the elderly SS men, the present mirrors the past - and a remarkable crime on the high seas races to an explosive conclusion.