Sir Maxwell Tarn is missing. The self-made tycoon, mastermind of a global empire that embraces some highly unusual activities, has vanished with the beautiful Lady Tarn - right from under the noses of a crack surveillance team, supposedly in the flames of a dramatic automobile accident. Now James Bond and the newly reorganized Double-Oh section of the SIS must move quickly to discover what really happened to Sir Maxwell and expose him and his operation for what they really are. With Fredericka von Grusse - Flicka - his stunning partner introduced in Never Send Flowers, Bond follows a maze of trails from England to Spain to Israel, and then to a picturesque German village overrun with neo-Nazis. Evidence of a diabolical scheme leads Bond and Flicka to Puerto Rico, where the pair must move quickly both above and below water to thwart Tarn and his master plan before his cache of deadly weapons destroys much more than a few pristine islands in the Caribbean.