The sixties have begun and with them the age of Aquarius. Adolf Eichmann is sentenced to death in Jerusalem. Konrad Adenauer pledges military aid for Israel. At the same time, however, large numbers of German aircraft designers, engine builders and rocket technicians are drawn to Egypt.

Rita Hellberg, the daughter of an engineer, actually just wants to visit her parents in Cairo. But her father decides: The family belongs together. Egypt's President Nasser dreams of an African arms industry, and so her father builds a fighter-bomber. While her mother refuses to accept life in Cairo, Rita soon realizes that there can be no better place for her to enter her own future. She allows herself to be swept away into a fascinating world in upheaval. Only with time does she realize that she has landed in the middle of a conflict in which historical and future, global political and regional interests are being fought for by any means necessary. Everyone is watching everyone else, bombs are exploding, people are dying. Rita Hellberg has to decide where she stands.