It is March of 1992 and the Afghan war economy has fostered a thriving trade with neighboring Pakistan. En route to a famed and troubled border known as the Durand Line, an American photographer witnesses the murder of her Afghan friend. She also finds herself holding the currency for one of his business transactions: three stupefyingly large emeralds. In a search for answers to his untimely death, she determines to carry out the exchange. But in the hunt for her friend's trade partner, she finds herself the quarry an unwitting participant in international realpolitik.