The North Koreans are making a brazen grab for the United States' most important missile secrets, secrets which would render South Korea and Japan helpless before a North Korean missile attack. A heavily armed assault team from a North Korean Kilo class submarine is about to shift the balance of power in the Far East and leave the United States also vulnerable to a missile attack. The death ship known as "Master Three" must be prevented at all costs from returning to North Korea with its load of top secret documents and a kidnapped American engineer whose head is filled with missile secrets. On an isolated Pacific atoll, an undermanned, outgunned band of civilians, servicemen, and engineers is America's last line of defense . . . and her final hope. They must fight the ultimate battle - against an enemy few could have imagined.