At the height of the Cold War, young Nick Halliday joins the CIA to distance himself from a family tragedy and to do his part in the patriotic fight against the communist menace. Rushed into his first undercover assignment in Panama in 1958, Nick finds himself mired in the humid, dripping world of deceit and lies. Pretending to be a leftist-leaning visiting professor at the University of Panama, Nick infiltrates an earnest, naïve group of leftist students bent on Panama regaining ownership of the canal. But Nick’s budding romance with Maria, a beautiful student activist, throws his mission sideways. The international clash of ideologies harshly intrudes on a young man’s love for a woman. Both are expendable pawns in a vast worldwide death match. Can they survive in a game that only values winning, whatever the cost? And what does winning mean, anyway?