March, 1981…Heartbeats away from closing the biggest drug deal in US history, the Solamente mob-family trawler Maltese is tethered to a Colombian freighter in rough seas. Fifteen miles into the face of a fierce nor'easter, twenty tons of hashish are being unloaded from the delivery ship Hombre when the trawler suddenly sinks. In the chaos, wind and rain, crewmen are saved by the escort boat blackmailed away from Seaport College Professor-of-the-Year Rick Maddigan. As the Maltese sinks, the Hombre turns and runs. . . murders, drownings, and arrests in her wake. 40,000 hashballs burst through soggy cartons and surf onto boardwalk beaches at high tide. Scavenging hippies scamper the shoreline in frenzied pursuit and $12.5 million cash disappears! The rescue boat was Maddigan’s love nest shared with student-partner, JP. The two coerce DEA agents to abandon drug charges against Maddigan and retrieve the professor’s boat. This stirs up mob family politics but four lives are spared in a bullet-barrage confrontation by last-minute, turn-coat heroics. The $12.5 million has totally vanished – along with two crewmen suspected as the source of startling cash deliveries to needy children’s organizations worldwide.