When you don’t have a plan, you can end up doing something called flying by the seat of your pants. In the world of aviation, that’s known as Dead Reckoning, and for good reason. If you reckon wrong, you can end up dead.

Harry Delaney and Mike Williams have always had a plan. In East Africa, it involved running guns and transporting mercenaries. When Harry and his plane get shot up in a hot-zone landing, an overland trek aided by two mercenaries ends up in a border firefight on the road to Nairobi. With their merc rescuers believed dead and Harry injured, a hospital stay forces the pair to evaluate their options. They head off to North Africa and Spain before making the jump to mainland Mexico. Their Mexico plan involves misappropriated cartel cash, a stolen airplane, and a load of drugs. Not to worry, though. They’re well on their way from mainland Mexico to Baja sur over 200 miles of open water in a Piper Cub on tundra tires. The plan works, until they encounter two women with a plan of their own and a vehicle filled with drugs. Everyone thinks it’s a great idea to team up and head north. When the plane crashes and Mike is kidnapped, Harry is forced to depend on the women to help him rescue his friend from the clutches of the cartel.

Years later, Harry leaves Africa behind and ends up working for his old friend Mike in his oil patch charter business. He finds himself happily settling in until a late-night phone call forces him to confront his past and return to East Africa. He’s forced to steal an airplane to continue the adventure that started ten years before. Mike isn’t far behind. He’s hot on the trail of a missing Twin Otter, and he has suspicions that he knows the guilty party.