Nick Andrews, an Army Long Range Reconnaissance Operative, finds all this and forbidden romance with a beautiful mulata woman while exploring the island from the streets of Havana to the rebel camp on Pico Turquino. He also finds friendship with a loyal Fidelista, Juan Tumbas, who helps Castro train and lead his rebel army to victory.

Nick’s long standing relationship with a wealthy socialite, Emma Regan, and her husband, Karl, a retired pediatrician, who own a sugar plantation near Jovellanos in the center of the island, gives Nick access to the powerful, Presidente Fulgencio Batista, and the famous Ernest Hemingway. From these vantage points, he learns that American foreign relations with the island nation have been left in the hands of businessmen and gangsters by an inattentive U.S. Ambassador and State Department.

Nick’s reports to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee result in the replacement of the Ambassador, but too late to alter the course of events in Cuba. Ultimately, he and Juan are forced to flee the island to escape the wrath of Fidel’s most notorious commandante, Che Guevara.