The Passenger

American drifter Neil Bowman, traveling through France, meets, while in Paris, Le Duc de Croyter, who hires him for an unknown task, all Bowman knowing it providing him with $3,000, the use of a car while in France, and a free ticket back to New York City. En route to southwest France to meet the Duke to learn more about the assignment, Bowman picks up Lila, a pretty British freelance photojournalist, hitchhiking, he, attracted to her, offering her a free place to stay in it also part of his payment. In meeting the Duke again, Bowman learns that he is to be a constant companion to a Hungarian national, then escort him on that flight three days later to reunite him with his family, he who has been smuggled into France by some traveling gypsies, their caravans which routinely are not checked at borders in gypsies' general vagabond nature, especially at this time as many from all over Europe have converged in Vaccares in the Camargue for a well known gypsy festival. Bowman quickly begins to suspect that his assignment is not as simple as it appears on the surface, in part by the Duke's secretive nature upon their reunion. But the biggest clue as to the bigger issues with this assignment are attempts on his life, increasing in nature after he meets the Hungarian, Zuger. After discovering who Zuger is, Bowman has to decide if the dangerous job is worth the risk to his and Lila's lives.