Kuwait City, 1991. The city lies largely in ruin, a primeval, derelict place, where civilization nearly ceased to exist. In the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, bomb disposal teams are tasked to clear the thousands of unexploded munitions scattered throughout Kuwait City. U.S. Army Captain Brick Revloc is a bomb disposal officer in charge of coordinating Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) operations. He's a savvy, scrappy little guy whose mouth lands him in as much trouble as the exotic places to which he travels. The threatening news that a weapon of mass destruction may be planted somewhere in the city by stay-behind Iraqi forces finds Brick Revloc in a race against the clock to locate and neutralize an improvised nuclear device that could contaminate the entire Persian Gulf region. Later, suffering disillusionment from his experience and failure to get promoted, Revloc leaves the Army and joins an agency whose mission is to investigate former military bases for the presence of unexploded bombs. He's sent to Adak, a small, inhospitable island in the Aleutian chain. During World War II, it was the scene of fierce fighting between U.S. troops and Japanese forces. Now, North Korean special operations troops have infiltrated the island. Experiencing turmoil brought on by food shortages and a severely depressed economy, North Korea discovers that in World War II, containers of Lewisite, a type of mustard gas, were abandoned by the U.S. military on Adak Island. The North Koreans contrive an elaborate scheme to recover the toxic chemical and use it to their advantage. Their goal is to reunite the Korean peninsula by provoking a military response between the United States and China. By releasing the liquid blister agent onto the shores of main land China, they hope to create a chaotic situation where Taiwan is blamed. Their plan relies on the U.S. responding to an attack on Taiwan by China. In an inhospitable environment described as "the birthplace of the winds," two small groups of men battle for survival: the Americans attempting to prevent the North Koreans from getting away with their nefarious scheme, and the Koreans tracking down the only ones who can thwart their plan. There can be only one winner--