Discredited British Army officer Jack Elliot is a man with nothing left to lose - or to live for. For him, life is cheap and death expensive: He kills now for money. So when Ang Yuon, a wealthy Cambodian refugee, asks him to cross Thailand to rescue his wife and children from the Khmer Rouge, Elliot demands a large price. This time he expects, even hopes, to die. But two things curse him with a reason to live - the enormous suffering of the Cambodian people and the appearance of his estranged daughter, Lisa. On the day of her mother's death, Lisa learns that there is more to her father's past than the picture of the heroic soldier killed in battle her mother had painted for her. So Lisa sets out in search of Elliot and follows him as far as Bangkok, where she falls foul of his Thai associates, Tuk Than and "La Mere Grace," ruthless people whose business interests encompass girls as well as guns.