Nasser's decision to nationalize the Suez Canal in July of 1956 caused an upheaval in Middle Eastern affairs as western powers reassessed their ties to the region's governments. The overriding concern was how the decision might affect future access to Middle Eastern oil. Almost overnight, Libya's province of Cyrenaica emerged as a critical geopolitical asset as oil prospectors from western nations urgently sought confirmation the region held commercially important deposits of the precious product. The U.S., anxious to secure solid intel, directed their Cairo Station covert operative, Alan Harper, to insert himself into that tumultuous region under the guise of being a freelance journalist in search of a story. The young Alan Harper, only a few years out of journalism school and the CIA training course at Camp Peary, undertakes his second major assignment; his first being his undercover work in Calcutta the previous year. Harper crosses into Cyrenaica from Egypt on a lightweight motorcycle. Almost immediately, he begins to learn of tensions within Libya as the United States and Great Britain jockey for advantage. Harper finds himself a target of those bent on preventing him from securing the information he was tasked with acquiring. His adversaries repeatedly demonstrate their willingness to go to extreme lengths to thwart him.