The story of Brazilian Antônio José da Silva, a jewish poet, playwright and lawyer living in the 18th Century Lisbon, who managed to avoid Inquisition by converting himself to Catholicism, after being tortured. But his fierce criticism of Portugal's élite led him to persecution and torture, becoming kind of a scapegoat.
At the end of the nineteenth century, an army force led by Major Mouzinho de Albuquerque, a cavalry officer, imprisoned in Mozambique the tribal chief Gungunhana, who had rebelled against Portuguese government and sovereignty. Mouzinho instantly becomes a national hero but his raising popularity worries the State.
Under the mundane guise of a public relations firm, Singrid Karaman is actually running an intelligence network. Her new mission is to foil an upcoming coup attempt in the African country of Myassaland, and to recover the large stock of diamonds that have fallen into the hands of the mercenaries behind the plot. She instructs a former Nazi, Eric, to form a shock commando and her assistant, Carol, to contact the mercenary leaders, Commandant St Robert and Captain Tarquier. Although Tarquier is very suspicious, St Robert agrees to go aboard Ingrid's yacht.
An arms smuggler organization uses a pirate television station to spread dissention among representatives in an international conference in Portugal. A French diplomat travels to Macao, hoping to locate a sexy spy who had stayed in Lisbon.