A Korean wartime colleague of Varela sends him a prearranged distress signal from Lisbon that spell danger. The friend is murdered and Varela goes to Lisbon and finds he is the beneficiary of a supposed key to a safe deposit box containing secret research papers into the perfecting of a new LASER beam, but there is no key and interested parties are prepared to kill to obtain the papers.
An £11 million gift, dollars for Europe, for the poor of Palabria is refused unless the five man committee each receive an expected bribe but a government inspector is investigating corruption. Varela is on a cruise so Bill Randall and Chin go to Palabria to pay the bribes under the inspector's nose.