An Antarctic research vessel sinks and all aboard perish in the freezing waters of the Patagonia. A popular priest is murdered inside a Puerto Montt cathedral. Prominent Washington, D.C. lawyer, Stephan Brent, pleads for his assistant, Emmanuelle Solis, to hand-deliver incriminating files to him in South America where he is in hiding.

But when Emmanuelle arrives in Chile, her simple plan to help Brent quickly goes awry. Brent's body is found on the Argentine-Chile border, and the FBI and Interpol are linking Emmanuelle to a radical conspiracy implicated in his abduction and murder....