In 1978, five men die in a shack in Soweto, South Africa, during a skirmish between the South African Security Police and Umkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress. A year earlier they had all travelled from Durban to Johannesburg on a bus, totally unknown to each other. Isaiah Zuma: a nineteen-year old Zulu man destined for the Witwatersrand gold mines to find work and provide for his destitute mother. Too ambitious to work as a miner, he begins stealing explosives from the mine and selling them. Wary of the dangers in this illegal industry, he approaches Umkhonto weSizwe. Accepted into the organisation, Isaiah works with another operative making bombs and bombing targets to publicize the organisation's struggle for freedom. Bala Desai: a young Indian tailor who inherits his uncle's tailoring business in Pageview, Johannesburg, begins a new life with his wife and daughter, only to have the government forcibly move his business to the unknown Oriental Plaza and his family to the new Indian township of Lenasia. But Bala is determined not to lose his inheritance. Bogdan Vodnik: a Yugoslav immigrant is hired as a buyer for the Deep Reef Gold Mine. He is also an accomplished dealer in stolen and illegal goods. Coerced by an Umkhonto weSizwe operative into acquiring bomb-making equipment for them due to his violation of the Immorality Act and interrogated by the Security Police and forced to work for them, Bogdan goes underground and joins the struggle for freedom. Joseph Matimba: also known as "Shadow" and a survivor from the 1976 Soweto uprising, he operates an Umkhonto weSizwe cell in Soweto, attacking and bombing targets to publicize his people's struggle. Captain Tiaan Botha: a member of the South African Security Police, his prime goal is to capture the members of an Umkhonto weSizwe cell in Soweto. What happened between the time these men left Durban and their deaths a year later?