Three summers after the biggest man-made environmental disaster in history, a drilling explosion in Cuban waters 60 miles off the Florida Keys has millions of gallons of oil spewing from a hole in the ocean floor. The situation is complex: the consortium doing the work is state-owned Venezuelan, Chinese and Russian, controlled by a mineral lease from the Cuban government, and the Cubans not only refuse assistance from the U.S., they also vow to fire on "hostile" American vessels that enter Cuban waters. When his new wife Andie is called back to an undercover CIA assignment, Jack Swyteck heads to Key West to see his buddy Theo Knight and is transformed from bystander to player in the unfolding oil catastrophe when he takes on a client whose husband was on the rig that blew up. She wants Jack to file a wrongful death suit in U.S. court. Taking on this unimaginably complicated case pitches Jack into a dangerous world, only to find that his case and Andie's assignment may be lethally connected.