In 1964, Bruce Curry is publicly hired by Congolese President Ubi to rescue European residents from an isolated mining town on the brink of a Simba-led attack. Yet his true motive is far more profit-driven: to recover the staggering sum of $50 million in diamonds stored in a vault at the mining company. He leads a small, battle-hardened team including his loyal ally, a formidable figure named Ruffo, and the alcoholic physician Doctor Wreid. He also reluctantly recruits ex-Nazi Henlein for his military expertise and ruthless leadership.
The mission is backed by a steam train and Congolese government soldiers supplied by Ubi, but the operation promptly runs afoul of UN accords. A United Nations peacekeeping plane swoops in, severely damaging the train and derailing their timetable. At a burned-out farmhouse, the group rescues a traumatized woman, Claire, who has witnessed her husband’s brutal death at the hands of the Simba rebels. Meanwhile, Henlein begins to sow discord, aware of the diamonds and resentful of Curry’s leadership. His chilling cruelty becomes apparent when he casually kills two children who might be Simba spies and presses his advances on Claire. When Curry intervenes, the German attacks him with a swagger stick and a chainsaw; only Ruffo can restrain him.
Complications escalate as the mercenaries reach the mining town. First, the diamonds lie behind a time-locked vault that delays the train’s departure. Second, Dr. Wreid refuses to abandon a pregnant woman at a nearby mission hospital. Reluctantly, Curry consents to leave the doctor behind to protect the patient.
As Curry endures the slow wait for the vault to open, Simba mounts attacks on the town and the nearby station. The train, carrying the diamonds and most of the European passengers, starts to pull away while under heavy fire. A mortar round shatters the coupling between the last two carriages, and the final coach—still guarding the diamonds and many Europeans—slips back into Simba-claimed territory as the rest of the train continues onward.
That night, Curry and Ruffo embark on a perilous retrieval mission. Disguised as Simba fighters, they slip into the town, and Ruffo carries Curry’s apparently lifeless body into the hotel, where the film then exposes scenes of murder, torture, and male rape. A diversion by surviving Congolese soldiers buys them a window to seize the diamonds and escape in borrowed vehicles. Running low on fuel, Curry sets off to find more, while Henlein takes advantage of his absence to strike, killing Ruffo under the misguided belief that Ruffo now holds the diamonds. When Curry returns to the convoy and discovers his friend is dead, he launches a ferocious pursuit of Henlein, a fight that ends with Henlein’s death.
Back at the convoy, Curry faces the moral weight of his actions and, after a tense reflection on the nature of the man he has become, chooses to surrender to a court-martial rather than vanish. The story closes with a stark meditation on loyalty, greed, and the blurred lines between heroism and villainy, all set against the chaos of war, political intrigue, and the ever-present shadow of colonial ambitions.
