Based upon the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst, is thrust right in the middle of a power struggle within the Colombian drug cartel after one of the President's "life long" friends is murdered, apparently in retaliation for stealing money as part of a money laundering scheme for the cartel. Jack is then appointed acting Deputy Director of Intelligence, CIA, upon the terminal illness of Admiral James Greer, former DDI, and quickly gets in over his head due to his political naivete. The situation rapidly deteriorates when some of the presidents men convince the President to conduct covert actions against the cartel, in direct violation of congress. Felix Cortez, the security chief of Ernesto Escobeda, the "victim" of the missing money, is one of the cartel boss's. Cortez tries to play both sides, appearing to inform Escobeda about the CIA's involvement in the covert operations against him, while trying to orchestrate a coup to take over the cartel, with Cortez as it's sole boss. James Cutter, the President's National Security Advisor, makes his own deal with Cortez, with the Presidents knowledge, and halts communications to the covert troops still in Colombia, through the Deputy Director of Operations, CIA, Robert Ritter. Ryan ends up going to Colombia to rescue the covet ops troops with the help of field agent John Clark, but not before some fence mending between the two, being that Ritter blamed Ryan for the comm outage, with Clark's men subsequently being captured by Cortez's mercenaries.