Hidden in the hold of the scuttled ocean-going tug, the Semper Fi, are gold bars etched with mysterious hieroglyphics. Returning to the Mediterranean to raise the tug and sail her back to Hawaii for use in their Special Investigations PI business, Primrose and Knight pull their former U.S.M.C. team together to help, along with tall, blond Egyptologist and university professor, Flossi Mozelle Lighthouse, who can interpret the unusual etchings and determine their value as antiquities.


What Flossi discovers sends the team across the Atlantic and through the Panama Canal, following the dastardly General Khan in an effort to thwart his terrorist plot. Aided by Laura Lotts, a specialist in marine-related criminal investigations in Oregon, Primrose's wife, Rhonda, and Primrose's friends in the Seattle area, "Khan Khan" finds his plans for a nuclear attack in jeopardy.