In 1975, Art Keller observes Operation Condor from a ridge overlooking the Badiraguato Valley in Sinaloa. Mexican army troops and aircraft burn poppy fields and torch villages, using DEA-funded aircraft flown by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pilots to spray chemical defoliant on the fields. Art, positioned with Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS) agents and policeman Miguel Ángel Barrera, is waiting to arrest Don Pedro Áviles, the aging drug lord who has controlled Sinaloa’s heroin trade for decades.

Art is a former CIA operative who worked on Operation Phoenix in Vietnam before joining the newly formed DEA, hoping the War on Drugs would be a war worth fighting. He grew up in San Diego’s Barrio Logan, the son of an Anglo father who abandoned the family and a Mexican mother. At UCLA he met and married Althea Patterson, then was recruited into the CIA, served in Vietnam, and eventually transferred to the DEA.

When Art arrived in Culiacán, his boss Tim Taylor and the other agents kept their distance because of his CIA background, and the local Mexican police refused to cooperate. Frustrated and alone, Art visited the shrine of Jesús Malverde, a folk saint revered by drug traffickers, and made a devotional promise to give money to the poor if he could succeed.

Shortly after, Art wandered into a boxing gym and met two brothers, Adán and Raúl Barrera, who were managing a young fighter. Art sparred with the boxer, was severely beaten, but earned respect by refusing to quit. Adán befriended him, marking Art’s first real male friendship.

Six weeks later, Miguel Ángel Barrera, the uncle of Adán and Raúl who is also known as Tío, visited Art at his hotel. A Sinaloa state police official and special assistant to the governor, Tío proposed a covert partnership: he would provide intelligence to dismantle the drug trade, and Art would use DEA resources to act on it. When Taylor tried to reassign Art, Tío used his influence to block the transfer. The two collaborated systematically, dismantling Don Pedro Áviles’s organization while Tío positioned himself to take power. Tío ultimately orchestrated Operation Condor itself, leading to the current ambush.

Don Pedro Áviles is being driven to safety by his protégé Güero Méndez, believing the route has been cleared by Barrera in exchange for bribes. When Don Pedro orders Güero onto a different road than the one Barrera had cleared, they drive directly into the ambush. Seeing Tío, Don Pedro assumes the arrest is staged for American benefit and orders his men to surrender peacefully. Tío signals his men, who open fire and kill Don Pedro’s bodyguards. Art protests, reminding Tío that they are supposed to arrest Don Pedro, not execute him. When the shooting stops, Don Pedro is still breathing. Tío walks over, announces that Don Pedro reached for his gun, and shoots him in the head. Güero emerges from the car and kneels before Tío as his new boss, revealing he betrayed Don Pedro as part of a prior deal. Tío tells Art he got what he wanted and orders him to take his trophy.

Meanwhile, Adán is captured on the way home from a party in a village identified as a target site in the Condor raids by Federale Lieutenant Navarres, who mistakes him for a mid-level drug dealer. Navarres brutally interrogates Adán: repeatedly tilting him back and pouring gasoline into his nose, then forcing his head into a latrine pit. Adán insists on the truth: He doesn’t know where Don Pedro is.

Art, driving through the chaos, encounters a bishop named Juan Parada holding up a crucifix to stop soldiers from burning a village. After a sergeant threatens Parada and gunfire breaks out from the hills, Art tackles him to the ground. A woman tells Parada that federales are torturing people at a nearby camp, and Parada demands Art take him there. At the camp, Art finds Adán and a tortured campesino bound in a helicopter, about to be thrown out mid-flight as an interrogation tactic. Art pulls his pistol on the pilot and forces a halt. Taylor and Navarres confront him, but Art ends the standoff by producing Don Pedro’s corpse, claiming he was killed while resisting arrest. Art frees Adán and the campesino, and Parada tends to the injured man.

At a hospital in Culiacán, Adán refuses painkillers, wanting to feel the pain. He finds the room of the tortured campesino, Manuel Sánchez, pays for his care, and threatens the doctor with severe consequences if Manuel loses his leg. He then confronts Tío, who admits he orchestrated the raids to eliminate rivals and consolidate power, and tells him he wants to join the drug business.

Tío holds a summit with surviving drug lords, García Abrego, Chalino Guzmán (El Verde), and Güero Méndez, at a secured restaurant. Güero fabricates a story about fighting his way out of the ambush. Tío declares an end to old grudges and proposes a new organization called the Federación, dividing Mexico into territories: Abrego gets the Gulf Coast, El Verde gets Sonora, and Güero receives the valuable Baja plaza bordering California. Tío will relocate to Guadalajara and serve as the Federación’s coordinator, taking 15% of all operations in exchange for protection and political connections. When Abrego asks what product they’ll sell, Tío tells them to forget opium and marijuana: the new product is the border itself. A Honduran associate, Ramón Matta Ballesteros, demonstrates a process for converting powder cocaine into solid form, establishing the future of the drug trade.

Art fulfills his promise to Malverde by visiting a shantytown where Condor refugees have fled. He finds Bishop Parada running a makeshift clinic with limited supplies and gives him his entire month’s salary to buy medicine. Art tells Parada he doesn’t believe in God. Parada replies that God believes in Art anyway.

In 1977, 17-year-old Sean Callan grows up in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, surrounded by imagery of Irish martyrs and Catholic saints. One August afternoon, Callan and his friend Stevie O’Leary, who goes by the nickname “O-Bop,” are drinking at the Liffey Pub. Both are angry about what happened to Michael Murphy, a local who killed his best friend after using drugs. Eddie Friel, a criminal enforcer, mutilated Murphy in retaliation and paraded his corpse around town. No one can do anything to Friel since he works for Matt Sheehan, a neighborhood boss who runs the West Side unions and criminal operations while publicly opposing drugs in the community.

Friel enters the bar and confronts O-Bop, having heard he was criticizing the Murphy killing, and forces him to his knees at gunpoint. When Callan objects, Friel tells him to choose sides. Callan responds by shooting Friel twice in the forehead. O-Bop empties Friel’s pistol into the corpse. They flee with cash and a small black notebook from Friel’s pockets. The notebook contains a record of all debts owed to Sheehan.

Little Mickey Haggerty, a witness facing prison time, tells Callan and O-Bop to leave town immediately. They dispose of their guns in the Hudson but have nowhere to go. A friend, Bobby Remington, gives them two old pistols. When Sheehan’s men set up an ambush at their warehouse hideout, Callan and O-Bop kill one of them and escape. The incident signals that Sheehan’s authority is collapsing, inspiring locals to protect the young killers.

Bobby’s sister, Beth, visits Callan to apologize for tipping Sheehan off to protect her brother. Callan assures her he holds no grudge. As the neighborhood turns against Sheehan, Callan and O-Bop discover in the black book that Jimmy Piccone, also known as “Peaches,” a member of the Cimino crime family sent to kill them, owes Sheehan $100,000 plus interest. They propose a deal to Peaches: they’ll keep the book secret, erasing Peaches’ debt, and Peaches can collect on all other debts himself in exchange for eliminating Sheehan.

Peaches kills Sheehan. Callan and O-Bop use the black book to selectively settle neighborhood debts, earning goodwill while maintaining leverage. They also kill Larry Moretti, who helped Friel kill Murphy, though Callan feels guilty about the revenge killing.

Big Paulie Calabrese, the new boss of the Cimino family, summons Callan and O-Bop to Bensonhurst and demands an explanation for why he shouldn’t kill them for murdering his associate. Callan and O-Bop argue they can deliver more value: control of construction unions, the Javits Center project, and a percentage of loan-sharking operations. After tense negotiations, Calabrese agrees to make them associates, working under Peaches and paying 30% of loan-sharking profits and 50% of union income. Calabrese warns that dealing drugs is absolutely forbidden and punishable by death.

Later, Peaches reveals he used the money he effectively stole from Sheehan to buy drugs from a new source in Mexico, defying Calabrese’s rule. Peaches is now seeking to establish a cocaine pipeline.

At 14, Nora Hayden discovers she can manipulate men through sexual power when one of her father’s friends makes advances during a car ride. Nora’s parents are divorced: her mother has moved to Atlanta for work, and her father remains in California, unemployed and constantly using marijuana. Nora chooses to live with her father to stay near the beach. She begins dating older men who provide her with expensive meals, drugs, and gifts. Her classmates call her “Nora the Whora,” but she doesn’t care.

At 16, Nora goes to Cabo San Lucas with Jerry, a middle-aged cocaine dealer. At the resort pool, a woman keeps watching her. Nora confronts the woman, who introduces herself as Haley Saxon and asks if Nora is making any money from her looks. Haley runs a high-end escort operation out of San Diego and tells Nora she could be “an earner” instead of giving herself away for drugs and dinners. Nora agrees to be mentored.

Haley transforms Nora over the next two years. She hires a voice coach with experience at the Royal Shakespeare Company, who deepens Nora’s register and polishes her speech. She puts Nora on a rigorous physical training program, buys her proper clothes, and makes her read the sports pages, financial news, and serious periodicals. Nora embraces the reinvention, stops sleeping around, and returns to school as a disciplined, knowledgeable young woman her peers barely recognize. Haley also takes Nora to see sex workers on the Sunset Strip as a cautionary lesson: stay sober, save your money, and plan for the future.

When Nora turns 18, she begins working at Haley’s brothel, called the White House, an all-white mansion in San Diego furnished to intimidate and quiet men. Haley’s employees always wear black, are always fully dressed, and are presented through elegant photo binders rather than paraded for inspection. The operation is funded by Tío Barrera, and Haley uses it partly to entertain the Barrera family’s business associates.

Meanwhile, Adán Barrera is courting Lucía Vivanca, a well-bred young woman from a respectable family who refuses to sleep with him before marriage. Adán no longer visits the White House as a client, wanting to project seriousness. His brother Raúl, however, is a frequent and enthusiastic customer.

Sean Callan arrives in San Diego on what Jimmy Peaches insists is a pleasure trip before their drug business meetings. Peaches drags his brother Little Peaches, Callan, and O-Bop to the White House for the evening. When Callan sees Nora’s photograph in the binder, he is transfixed, and Haley steers the match.

Callan and Nora meet in the sitting room, and he falls instantly in love. She is surprised to feel no contempt for him. As they are about to go upstairs, Peaches demands Nora for himself. The room goes tense: Callan refuses, O-Bop backs him, and a violent standoff looms. Nora defuses the crisis by announcing she will choose. She reads a signal from Haley, who needs the evening to go smoothly for Adán’s business, and selects Peaches. Callan accepts the decision quietly.

Peaches takes Nora upstairs and sexually assaults her. Afterward, Nora scrubs herself raw in the shower. Callan, who has refused the company of any other woman, stands alone outside by the car. Nora looks down at him from her window and wishes he could have been her boyfriend.