Morocco. Abdullah is a goatherder who is trying to eliminate the jackal population that is preying on his goats, so he purchases a Winchester rifle and a box of bullets from his neighbor, Hassan Ibrahim. He gives the rifle to his sons, Yussef and Ahmed, and tells them to go and kill the jackals. While they are out in the desert, the boys don't believe that the rifle really has the advertised three-kilometer range and so start shooting at random targets: rocks, a moving car and then a tourist bus that happens to have a party of American tourists riding on it. Yussef's bullet hits one of the Americans, Susan Jones, in the shoulder and critically wounds her. Susan, from California, is traveling with her husband, Richard. The boys run away and find out later from the television news that the American government is calling the shooting an act of terror, and that they are pressuring the Moroccan government to find the perpetrators quickly.
The Moroccan police find bullet casings, and trace the rifle back to Hassan who tells them that he obtained the rifle from a Japanese man, and passed it on to Abdullah. Believing that Susan Jones has been killed, Ahmed and Yussef confess to the accident and the three of them flee the house. As they are running, the police spot them on a rocky slope, and fire at them. They hit Ahmed in the leg. Yussef fires back at them. The shoot out continues but stops abruptly when Yussef surrenders and confesses to the shooting of the American tourist. He asks for medical assistance for his brother. He is arrested and taken away.
Richard and Susan came to Morocco to try to mend their marriage after the death of their third-born daughter to sudden infant death syndrome, and Richard's subsequent affair. When Susan is shot on board the bus, Richard panics because the hospital is over four hours away. Their tour guide suggests that they drive to the village of Tazarine, where a veterinarian stitches Susan's wound to stop the bleeding. Richard calls the American embassy to ask them to send an ambulance, but they are delayed by the allegations of a terrorist attack. Eventually, a helicopter arrives to transport them to a hospital in Casablanca, where it is determined that Susan will make a full recovery.
Japan. Chieko Wataya is a deaf-mute teenager whose mother recently killed herself. Deeply traumatized by the event, Chieko begins to act out sexually with older boys. One night, after trying to seduce her dentist, she meets up with a group of friends, takes ecstasy, and goes to a club. At the club, she sees one of her friends kissing the boy she had been flirting with all night, and leaves, heartbroken.
At home, Chieko invites a detective, Kenji Mamiya—who asked to speak to her father earlier that day—over to her apartment. Suspecting that he wants to know more about her mother's death, she tells him that her mother jumped from the balcony of their apartment. In reality, he wants to know about the rifle that Chieko's father passed along to Hassan on his hunting trip to Morocco. Confused, Chieko attempts to seduce Mamiya, and breaks down in sobs when he rebuffs her. Before he leaves, Chieko gives Mamiya a note to read later. On his way out, Mamiya runs into Chieko's father in the lobby, and begins to question him about the rifle. Chieko's father tells him that he gave Hassan the rifle as a thank-you gift. Chieko's father finds her naked on the balcony of their apartment and she falls into his arms, sobbing.
United States/Mexico
Richard and Susan's nanny, Amelia, is taking care of their children, Mike and Debbie, while they are on their trip to Morocco. When Richard calls to tell her about Susan's injury, they agree not to tell the children, and she realizes that she will be looking after the kids single-handedly for longer than she planned. Having agreed to attend her son's wedding in her native Mexico, Amelia is stressed to find she cannot find anyone to cover for her. She decides to take the children to the wedding in Tijuana with her, and to be driven by her wayward nephew, Santiago. The trip is uneventful and goes smoothly until they have to return to the United States.
Amelia decides that rather than spending the night in Tijuana, it would be better to make the drive back to California that evening. Santiago is drunk, but insists that he will drive them. When they are stopped at the border, the border guards are suspicious of the two Mexicans in the car with two American children. Amelia has the children's passports with her, but she doesn't have a letter of consent from their parents. When it seems like they are going to be arrested, Santiago speeds away and drives off-road into the middle of the desert. There, he abandons Amelia and the children just north of border patrol. They spend the night in the desert, and in the morning, Amelia, who is scared that they will die, goes to find a border patrol agent to ask for help. She tells the children to stay exactly where they are.
Amelia is arrested by a border patrol agent. She takes them back to where she left the children in the desert, but Mike and Debbie have vanished. Later, at the border patrol station the authorities tell her that they have found the children and that since she has been working illegally in California, she will be immediately deported back to Mexico.
