Harry Steele is a wily American adventurer who makes a living as a tour guide in Cusco, Peru, always chasing a bigger score. He believes the legendary sunburst—an ornate Inca treasure of gold and jewels—lies hidden in the ruins of Machu Picchu, and he guards a fragment of a carved stone that supposedly reveals its exact location when placed on a stone map inside a local museum. On his trail is Ed Morgan (/actor/thomas-mitchell), a bar owner who feels his own days of chasing riches are behind him after fourteen years of fruitless search. Morgan hires a sniper to spook [Harry Steele], but the plan backfires: the hunter misses, Morgan’s intimidation boomerangs, and Harry warns him that he won’t sell the stone. The encounter ends with a vow of revenge, and a bitter knot tightens between the two men.
Into this tense web steps Elena Antonescu, a Romanian defector running from a dangerous past and from a powerful man named Anton Marcu, who has a small plane and is determined to recover her. Elena pleads her case to Harry, spinning a tale of peril and a desperate bid to reach America, which Harry pretends to believe while using her to sharpen his own edge. With little money and the police closing in on her, Elena’s story becomes a bargaining chip: she offers to cooperate if Harry helps her reach Mexico, where she hopes to vanish into the American landscape. Harry agrees, but his real plan is to seize Marcu’s plane, and then slip away with Elena on his own terms. He engineers Elena’s entry into Marcu’s room, slipping in while the Romanian official is inebriated and leaving with the keys, but he keeps the real objective close to himself, disguising the change in plan from Elena as they head for Machu Picchu.
Arriving at Machu Picchu, they encounter an archaeological expedition led by Dr. Stanley Moorehead, who is preparing to breach the tomb believed to house the sunburst. Harry fabricates a simple excuse—claiming their plane needs fuel—and cuts the expedition’s radio to keep news of pursuit at bay. Elena, sensing the growing danger and Harry’s evasions, accuses him of dishonesty and worries that he will abandon her. The shadow of lawmen and rivals closes in as Morgan arrives and explains that Marcu’s plane wasn’t reported stolen out of embarrassment, meaning there’s no active search for him. Morgan tries to pressure Harry into helping him locate the treasure, while Harry feigns cooperation—outwardly a collaborator, inwardly calculating how to keep the sunburst for himself.
Elena, torn between fear and attraction, asks Harry to abandon the plan and run away with her. When he refuses, telling her to keep Moorehead distracted, she voices a sharp critique: she compares him to Morgan and suggests that Harry is already shaping his future self into something cold and merciless. Yet she is drawn to him, even as she is repelled by his roguish ruthlessness. Moorehead, impressed by Elena and perhaps hopeful of a partnership, proposes marriage and offers to take her to America. Elena’s feelings are ambivalent—she is genuinely fond of Moorehead but cannot ignore the lure of Harry, who promises a more dangerous but thrilling future.
The expedition finally breaches a wall of Manco’s tomb, only to be disappointed by a carved stone sunburst that seems to be anything but the legendary prize. Harry reports the setback to Morgan, secretly resenting the slow progress and the risk of being outmaneuvered. In a calculated move, however, he slips away under the cover of night and uses a reflection of light from a gleaming artifact to reveal the hidden sunburst inside a hollow pillar. Morgan confronts him at gunpoint, demanding the sunburst, but a native hunter intervenes, triggering a chaotic flight of pursuers. Morgan flees onto a treacherous cliff, and the two men struggle for the treasure until Morgan plummets to his death.
With the sunburst recovered, the natives receive it back and return it to the Temple of the Sun, where legend holds that its placement will restore the glory of the Incas. Harry, ever the improviser, tells the authorities that he simply found the sunburst, that Morgan stole it, and that he retrieved it, shielding Elena from any immediate danger. In the aftermath, he teases Elena with the possibility of time and trauma between them, hinting at a long, uncertain engagement should Col. Emilio Cardoza prove to be an ally—or an obstacle—at the right moment. As a final gesture, Harry slips Elena an ancient gold pin that somehow fell into his pocket, a small token of luck—or misfortune—that hints at the precarious, wandering road ahead.
