River Dogs

Interior Protection Agent Paolo Herez is faced with tracking down the vilest killers in South America. Remembering how her husband had almost died at these killers’ hands some years earlier, Paolo’s young wife pleads with him not to accept the assignment. But there are too many lives at stake for him to refuse.
He flies from Rio to Manaus, Central Amazonia, and then takes a boat upriver deep into the rainforests where he settles into life as a fugitive in a small, lawless, backwater town.
His boss’s suspicions prove correct when eventually the killers arrive in the town to hire pistoleiros.
He learns vital information before he has to save a vulnerable new friend from the killers, and is wounded during their escape.
Retreating to a Catholic Aid Station where he recovers, he continues on to locate one of his Department’s outstations where he receives orders to return to Rio.
Back at headquarters he learns that his boss has been assassinated and that his wife is comatose in hospital after a failed kidnap attempt.
Now it’s hardball, regardless.
He extracts information from suspect Government officials and discovers more about a plot to annihilate several indigenous tribes so as to acquire their land for mining development.
The killers’ base will be a remote logging station. Unknown to Paolo, the station’s manager is a reluctant conspirator in the unfolding plot. The manager had taken the first steps thinking his reward would finance a new life with his house-girl, Danhilla. He does knot know his love for her is unrequited.
Following a helicopter crash, Paolo is captured by the killers. Only the intervention of the station manager brings an end to Paolo’s torture.
Imprisoned, Paolo is freed by Danhilla in the black of night and together they flee on horseback, pursued by the killers.
The tables are turned when Paolo and Danhilla ride straight into a contingency of Interior Protection Department agents waiting to swoop on the logging station at dawn.
A climatic battle ensues, the end of which sees Paolo defeat his torturer and watch the man being washed away in a river clouded purple by his blood, then out into a floodplain where the piranhas are circling.
Paolo finds a huge stash of US dollars and rewards Danhilla for saving his life, promises to return her to her family. As he leads her away to safety, he tells himself that this has been his last mission.