Anna and Ben are settled in rural Chile in the early 1970's. They are very isolated and their only real friends are two Chilean sisters, Eva and Monica. When Ben is stranded in Santiago on the eve of the military takeover of 1973, Anna is livid...and this is made worse by the fact that Eva, the ex-personal assistant to Allende's wife, has been arrested by the soldiers of the new Pinochet regime and taken into custody where she is emotionally and sexually defiled. She is released, only to be further harassed by one of her arresting officers, Raoul, who poses as her protector but wishes to rape her. Meanwhile, Anna becomes involved with a Canadian journalist named Paul, who is compiling information for an extensive journalistic treatment of the coup. Anna and Ben organize an escape for Eva, over the walls of a convent to the safety of an embassy.