Cultures clash as a pair of FBI agents invade a small town in Mississippi to investigate the recent disappearance of two white civil rights workers and their black companion. Agents Anderson and Ward work against each other more frequently than they work together as they battle to find the truth in an a hostile and increasingly volatile environment. Agent Ward is twenty years younger than Anderson, but has risen higher in the FBI hierarchy through an idealistic adherence to protocol. Agent Anderson joined the FBI late in life, after years of working as a small town sheriff in a rural Mississippi border town. Anderson and Ward seek to overcome the formidable challenge posed by a conspiracy of silence, hatred, and bigotry from diametrically opposed backgrounds and perspectives, but their respect for each other grows as they discover that neither has an exclusive hold on the truth. The evolution of understanding between the southern-bred, obstinate veteran agent and his northern-born partner are a microcosm of the nation's potential for hope in the face of brutal and unyielding efforts to resist.