In a deathbed confession an elderly Ivan Biermann, breaks a lifetime of silence and tells his granddaughter, Kim Biermann his story.

In 1945 Ivan is a pilot on German Raider Well-Reiter that doesn't surrender
to New Zealand authorities in May 1945. Instead it enters a fiord where its
cargo is buried in a cave. After blowing the ship up a Nazi officer forces Ivan to fly him north in the ship's floatplane. To avoid being killed killed Ivan crashes in the Tararua Ranges.

He survives and meets Sally who takes him in as a worker on her farm with the identity as a Dutchman. Ivan and Sally marry and keep silent about his true identity.

In 2012, Kim and Troy travel to Fiordland to search for the cave but find 
terrorists and a North Korean submarine waiting. They also want the secret
loot buried there for sixty years.