Professor Vandemeer works on a secret project for the US-Air-Force called DART: a very small helicopter for scouting and defense. When he gets killed, Colonel Denton gets under suspicion. His son Scott and Vandemeer's daughter Karen believe in his innocence and search for the true murderer and his motives.
High school student Dan Bartlett misses the plane he was supposed to be on with his rich girlfriend and her family on the way to a Caribbean vacation during a school break. He flies there alone, and runs into a series of characters and misadventures as he tries to catch up.
One of Tanaka's underlings has stolen a rare statuette that he had planned to use as a peace offering between the local Yakusa and Chinese Tong. He hires two private investigators to exchange ransom money to recover the statuette, but the trade goes down bad and Clay Roth is killed. This angers Roth's brothers and father, all combat veterans, and they go after the people responsible