Forced by the mob to flee Philadelphia, twenty-one-year-old American street hustler Martin Fine arrives in Kampala with a plan to make money selling drugs and precious stones. But after falling for gorgeous Sudanese refugee Esther Mapende, he takes an idealist's interest in her people's plight.
Fine's smuggling operation leads him into a six-million-dollar cache of diamonds. MI6, led by the charming Major Ian Smythe, wants the diamonds to fall into the hands of guerilla rebels fighting in the Sudanese Civil War. Meanwhile, the Americans, represented by a psychopathic rogue CIA agent, intend to intercept them on behalf of Amin. As Fine soon discovers, the Americans are playing checkers while the British are playing chess.
Through a series of shockingly violent events, Fine learns the hard way that, in 1970s Africa, the dream is never quite what it seems. His moral compass spins out of control, forcing him to adapt to a new reality: Amin's Uganda is not a place where a man can do well by doing good.
