SYNOPSIS:

Two married couples go on a romantic escape to Costa Rica, in anticipation of experiencing a tropical holiday in paradise, but one of the individuals has an ulterior motive. The couples are comprised of JILL and CLIVE HOLMES; and, JACK and BRIGITTE BENISH. Jill Benish-Holmes and Jack Benish are twin brother and sister in their mid-30's. Jill's spouse the aristocratic Clive Holmes, MP (Member of Parliament) being nearly twenty years older than Jill, represents constituents of County Surrey, UK. Jill is a clinical psychologist by profession; and, brother Jack is an aspiring screenwriter, but has yet to have sold a script, Jack's spouse Brigitte, is a successful attorney and partner in a prestigious L.A. law firm, who prods Jack to seek employment worthy of producing an income before his trust fund is expended. Their adventure begins when the couples meet-up at the airport in San Juan, Costa Rica, and then drive hurriedly to catch the last ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula, while playing tag-ass in their mini-SUV's over winding roads through tropical jungles. Once settled in a luxury beachfront hotel and residing within their privately owned tree-house bungalows, whereas construction has just been completed; they gather their first evening in the hotel dining room to relax and enjoy a diner and conversation that becomes a bit confrontational, as their consumption of the house specialty cocktail, called "Poco Loco" increases. The next morning Jill's alternative motive becomes clearer, when she fakes sickness informing Clive she is begging-off joining the others, who are venturing deep into the jungle to transverse the forest canopy on zip-lines. Left behind Jill quickly dresses and speeds-off to rendezvous at the "Enlightenment Temple" near a remote village where she seeks to find a holy-man who is known to locals as, "Shaman Bob". Bob, an ex-CIA agent believes he's slipped through the cracks, whereabouts unknown, remaining behind in Costa Rica following the Sandinista-Contra Wars, in nearby Nicaragua and San Salvador. At the time media reports had inflamed the public over the "Iran-Contra Affair", and the Reagan administration had cut-off funding of the Contras, but overlooked and continued to fund the clandestine "Pirate's Bay Operation", as it was known. While everyone stationed at Bahia Ballena returned home to the U.S.A., Robert Waters, aka "Shaman Bob", the administrator and controller decided he'd stay behind and do something good with the monies (that continued flowing from the coffeurs of the USA) instead of making war, he began development and converted the old hilltop lookout post into the Enlightenment Temple Conservatory. On their first meeting Jill experienced a little known hallucinogenic tea that is brewed-up by Shaman Bob, called "Ayahuasca" that had originated from the Amazonia region of South America where Bob had been stationed years before. He was overjoyed to find the same herbs, roots, and plants readily available in the Nicoya jungles to reproduce Ayahuasca tea locally. Jill finds herself intrigued and romantically attracted to Bob; and, likewise Bob is also attracted to Jill. Their prearranged meeting is being driven by a business opportunity worth billions of dollars to "Big Pharma" (International Pharmaceutical Companies). Bob seeks Jill's help accessing laboratories in the UK, to isolate and identify the molecular structure of his secret organic compound made from an unknown rare "black orchid" that when combined with the Ayahuasca produces a natural organic "hallucinogenic-aphrodisiac", he named "Midnight Glow." Personal and sexual situations spin out of control when Jill attempts to play the role of Cupid in hopes of aiding to help save a degenerating marriage between her brother Jack and his wife Brigitte. However, her ill conceived plan to help may have backfired when the twins consumed Shaman Bob's formula, which may have led to a sexual encounter between brother and sister? After four days in Costa Rica their holiday adventure is in shambles and their personal relationships on the rocks. While Jill's romantic entanglement with Bob has elevated to risking it all to protect their relationship that has become more than an attraction. They flee Costa Rica after Shaman Bob destroys the Enlightenment Temple with plastique explosives, blowing himself and the temple to smithereens along with the formulas being sought by his former employer the CIA. The twins and Jack's girlfriend CINDY McGEE who had arrived unanounced in Costa Rica to be with Jack, are now guarded by Bob's bodyguard GEORGE MALONE, protecting them from threats they've encountered from CIA agents STAN HARLOW and TERRANCE TROTTER; and, British Intelligence (MI6) who are covertly conspiring against each other to acquire the formulas. What had started as a holiday in Costa Rice, had turned into a getaway, bringing them back to Los Angeles, shadowed by CIA agents, they head up California's scenic Hwy. 1, through Big Sur, Carmel-by-the-Sea, and Pebble Beach. Jill, following Bob's instructions before his apparent demise seeks the advice and security of her father ISRAEL "IZZY" BENISH. While Izzy, a former Hollywood Film Producer, having sold his Production Company has retained other business interests; and, being a former Israeli Mossad agent he's aware of the threat, and quickly moves to provide security for his twins and their friends to stay with him in Pebble Beach. While there he invites them to visit his studio in Carmel Valley, to observe a demonstration of the advancements being made in the field of holographic imaging by his company Spectra Scatter-Grapjics (SSG). Did Shaman Bob survive the explosion of the Enlightenment Temple? Even in his absence will his plans and instructions to Jill succeed in her protecting his formulas and their lives? It remains unclear until the events of the twisted ending are revealed. -END-

MIDNIGHT GLOW