Twenty-eight year old Sissy MacKenzie works for her grandfather Marlon at his coal mine near Hartford, Arkansas in 1973. The beautiful, hard drinking and hard loving redhead has good business sense and operates a bulldozer and the mammoth dragline with great skill. As a favor to the State Department, Marlon and Sissy's father Jake travel to Colombia advising the government and coal industry officials there on strip mining techniques. While managing the mine in their absence, Sissy receives a call with news that her father and grandfather are missing. With the help of her mother and a trusted employee who she's involved with romantically, Sissy launches an investigation into their disappearance and discovers her family has been drawn into an international conspiracy and her life is now in danger. She goes on the run to stay one step ahead of the military, National Security Agency and the CIA as they come for her during this tumultuous time in American politics as the Nixon administration begins to crumble from the Watergate scandal.