Cmdr. Peter Wake, Office of Naval Intelligence, is in French Indochina in 1883 on a secret mission for President Chester Arthur. The novel opens with Wake aboard a riverboat on the Mekong River. The mission sounded simple in Washington: deliver the American president's reply to a confidential naval offer from the king of Cambodia, while clandestinely assessing the region's political and military situation. Wake figures it will take two more weeks...