Assassins, bombs and murder! Is this normal? Marc Ryder is an agent for an obscure government agency, Defense Foreign Liaison, nicknamed DFL, and he seems to have nine lives. He has been buried alive, survived shootouts on the streets of Long Beach, California, had his boat blown out from under his feet and had his car bombed as he was walking away. His good friend Dmitri, a Chechen drug smuggler from the Ukraine seems to find himself in one bad situation after another, but he too survives. Although not as a team, the two of them are on a relentless search to find an elusive assassin nicknamed the Bolivian, a murderous female with chameleon type abilities to disappear and escape. Dmitri makes an ill fated attempt to capture the Bolivian on the Greek Island of Paros with the help of his two cousins. Instead, his cousins are murdered and he finds himself on his way to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. He escapes only to be arrested by Greek police as the suspected murderer of his cousins.. Ryders beautiful Afghan fiancé, Marina, seems to be a magnet for assassins and bombs as her brother, Mohammed an Afghan drug smuggler seeks to kill her and Ryder, blaming them for the deaths of his two brothers. The pursuit of the Bolivian and the rescue of Dmitri from Greek police leads Ryder to fly to Athens. On the plane he meets a man named Buck who is hunting down a woman who stole twenty thousand dollars from him after they sailed from Ensenada, Mexico to Newport Beach, California. The woman vaguely reminds Ryder of the Bolivian and he slips his business card in Buck's pocket. Buck locates the Bolivian and calls Ryder. Buck is told to be careful and he doesn't listen. Ryder is diverted from his pursuit of the Bolivian by information from a source in Germany that there is a plot to steal a nuclear bomb from the Soviet Union and smuggle it out to unknown persons. A rogue Soviet General masterminds the theft and the bomb finds its way to a Soviet ship, captained by a friend of Ryder. The ship is bound for Long Beach, California. Marina's brother, Mohammed sends another assassin, the Iceman after her and Ryder culminating in a shootout on the streets of Long Beach. The hunt for the nuclear bomb consumes Ryder. The captain of the Soviet ship provides clues to the location of the bomb and DEA and NSA lead Coast Guard investigators and Ryder to the bomb. Being a trained bomb disposal technician, Ryder finds himself on a boat with the bomb ticking away. Erroneous information causes Ryder and Lieutenant Roy Henry to second guess the wiring on the bomb. When the crisis is over, Ryder and Marina travel to Puerto Vallarta on a short holiday at the invitation of his friend, the Chief of the Policia Federales who has found the Mendez drug cartel of Panama is planning to establish a base of operation in Puerto Vallarta. Marina is kidnapped and she and Ryder are involved in a fight for their lives. He returns to Long Beach and new information takes him to the Caribbean Islands of Sint Maarten, Curacao and Aruba in pursuit of the Bolivian. With help of Dmitri, the Bolivian is thought to be on a boat in the harbor near Oranjestad, Aruba. Ryder with a multi-agency task force make a midnight approach to the suspected boat only to be shocked by a tremendous explosion. Nothing remains, the Bolivian is presumed dead.
