 The Hamburg police arrest an international businessman, charging him with smuggling heroin from Pakistan. While he s on trial, his trophy wife, a former Olympic swimmer, discovers steely ruthlessness within herself. In Pakistan, the British home minister tours the poppy-eradication project and returns to London to find that his daughter is a heroin addict. While trying to save her, and helped by a crusading attorney, he learns the limits of government policy. Fazal, a peasant burned off his land where he farmed poppies, goes to Karachi and works for Tarik Butt, a murderous drug lord. Fazal s frankness and sense of worth are his strength and his liability. Stories cross and collide.