In this, the premiere entry in the "Brass" Bancroft series (starring the man who would-be President, Ronald Reagan), Brass is seen as an ex-Army pilot who works as a commercial airline pilot. One day he quits his well-paying, safe job to become an agent for the Secret Service. His first assignment is to look into a gang of smugglers who are suspected of sneaking illegal aliens into the US via airplanes. This gang is really bad, and whenever they fear that they will be caught, they simply open their hatches and drop the hapless aliens like so many bombs. Bancroft is enraged at their inhumanity, and in the end, he and the ring leader battle it out in a plane spinning out of control.