When a young American draft dodger from the Vietnam War disappears, his anxious parents seek the help of a Buffalo, New York, investigation company. The last coded postcard they received from their son indicated that he was hiding out in Afghanistan. The investigator photographs two bearded American young men camped in Kabul arguing with a better-dressed Englishman, but neither is the missing son. The trail goes cold. Thirty-five years later, a western Australian friend of the widowed mother uncovers the names of an Australian couple who were camped in Kabul at the time and might be able to provide clues to the young man's disappearance. The search is renewed, taking the investigators to Pakistan, the Indian Himalayas, the red-light area of Bangkok, and to the neighboring Laos.