The country has been torn by the Civil War, but Florida has been far removed from the fighting and from the politics. Few people live there, many of the original settlers having been killed by the Seminoles, most of whom were, in turn, slaughtered by the Army. Key West, the state's largest city sitting at the most southern tip of the peninsula, houses the thriving cigar industry. With over a hundred factories, most surrounded by villages built for the Cuban workers, it becomes a terrorist target, but whether the Spaniards are behind the arson, no one knows. All but a few factories are destroyed, and many owners choose not to rebuild. Vicente Ybor, one of the industry leaders, along with several others, chooses to relocate to Tampa. Shipping magnate, Henry Plant, is encouraged and decides to extend his rail line from Jacksonville to the port city on the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, just south of Tampa, blockade runner Captain Archibald McNeill shelters confederates running from the Union and arranges transport out of the country. With his aid, Colonel George St. Leger Grenfell, recently escaped from the isolated Fort Jefferson 60 miles off Key West, arrives in Cuba where he engages in covert operations aimed at the heart of the Union. Allan Pinkerton, however, has set his own trap for the suspected saboteur. The world wars come and go, and baseball is the national sport, providing, along with the emerging film industry, a much-needed distraction. Florida becomes the winter training grounds for several teams, and the playground for colorful celebrities, both blue-blooded ones and the nouveau riche. Resourceful entrepreneurs thrive, and cities grow. Tin can tourists begin spending winters in the Sunshine State and the Seminoles emerge from the Everglades where they'd spent the last hundred years hiding to tap into the growing tourism market. But, as Truman meets with Churchill, the two world leaders know all too well the danger that's been unleashed with the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Cigars are smoked, whiskey is sipped, and the two men plot the future of the new world of united nations.