The Shah is thrown out of Iran and the nation's turmoil becomes world headlines. Caught in this shifting world of fanaticism, ambition, duplicity, heartbreak and violent death are the foreign helicopter pilots who have been servicing the oilfields up and down the country. Their one objective now is to make a bold concerted escape, with their helicopters, to safety across the Gulf. But one of the pilots, Erikki, the blond Finnish pilot, is married to a beautiful high-born Iranian wife, Azadeh, and this story is about what happens to them.