This action-adventure film is based on one of author Clive Cussler's best known chararcters - Dirk Pitt. It takes place in Africa. Pitt and his sidekick, Al, have a company called NUMA which specializes in recovering historical treasures from the bottom of the sea. In his free time, Dirk is obsessed with finding a Civil War ironclad - the CSS Texas. He believes it is located somewhere in Africa. Their search for the ship becomes a dangerous adventure involving a beautiful woman who is a doctor with the World Health Organization, feuding warlords, desert treks on camels and potentially lethal environmental disasters of global proportions.