When renegade African general Obe Belewa seizes power in Liberia, it's just the first step in a plan to unite all of West Africa under his bloody rule. With diamond-rich Sierra Leone already subdued, the nation of Guinea is his next target - and the only thing that can halt him is UNAFIN, the United Nations Interdiction Force, a patchwork task group made up of light naval units from Great Britain, France and the United States.
But when a surprise attack be Belewa leaves UNAFIN in disarray, the call goes out for Commander Amanda Lee Garrett to assume command of the Seafighter Task Force. Soon the charismatic commander finds herself involved in a savage "war of peace" more testing than anything she has experienced before, playing a deadly one-on-one chess game with the brilliant and unconventional Belewa.
As the battle moves from vicious close-range firefights along the shores of West Africa into the jungles and swamps of the Gold Coast, Amanda and her crew experience a kind of warfare nothing could have prepared them for. And ultimately she realises that to defeat Belewa she must make a raid on the very heart of his empire - against terrible odds.
