Dr. Thomas Phillips is a National Guard psychologist whose previous work with Muslim prisoners, leads to a posting at the Camp Delta hospital in Guantanamo Bay. His duties include managing crises, to free his supervisor to assist in detainee interrogations. He quickly becomes immersed in the base life by volunteering with the Boy Scouts, fishing, and joining the Delta Dawgs running club.

But these activities are not enough to distract him from what he sees. He wonders if the detainees periodically admitted to the hospital on hunger strikes might not actually be suffering from the effects of "enhanced interrogations." The Geneva Conventions have been suspended, and he, too, works to suspend his suspicions, yet they continue to mount.

Then, through an inadvertent act of kindness, a high-value detainee enters Dr. Phillips's orbit. Hassan al-Abdi may provide a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden-a link that would justify the pending war with Iraq. The interrogation of al-Abdi is of critical importance, but he will speak only to Dr. Phillips.

Drawn into interrogation process, Dr. Phillips fears not only for al-Abdi but for his own psychic stability. He knows he must act, but does not know how.