Philippe is faced with scepticism by La Veille, the French Consul-General in Panama, due to his young age. He eloquently rebuffs this and invites La Veille to accompany him during his working day which starts at 2am and finishes at midnight. There follows a montage of various scenes including explosions across the scenic landscape, trips to the hospital to visit sick and injured workers, and meetings with engineers. La Veille becomes one of Philippe’s biggest supporters, and as the government’s representative in Panama, his opinion  carries weight. In fact, he’s so impressed that he recommends  Philippe to the government to receive the Legion D’Honneur medal. This sparks jealousy in the hugely vain Ferdinand De Lesseps who conspires to  humiliate and demote Philippe on his forthcoming trip to Panama accompanied by journalists and bigwigs.

The Turners arrive in Panama. Isaac is assigned to a bunkhouse, but there is no accommodation for Rebecca and the kids. It is clear that the move has been a huge mistake.They find an abandoned shantyhouse where the previous occupants had died from disease. The conditions are insalubrious. The Turners thread continues with the bleak story of the youngest falling sick and eventually dying. Isaac is badly injured in a work accident with a steam shovel (under Philippe’s watch) and, later in the story, will succumb to disease. He will be buried in an unmarked grave along with the other deceased workers. Philippe feels partly responsible, and with Pauline, occasionally does the rounds to distribute alms. Eventually, Rebecca will be one of the luckier ones, and find work as a housemaid in Philippe’s house, and he will take her and her teenage kids back to Paris.

In Paris, there is another capital raising for the French Canal Company, not long after the last one, and tongues start to wag. There are rumours of a huge overspend and that corruption is rife. The shares are widely owned by the middle classes and are very overvalued. The family butcher pesters Philippe’s mother, Madame Bunau-Varilla, in the street for news about Panama as the share price sinks. Foreign newspapers report accurately on the situation, but the French press is fed cash by the company to keep it compliant.

In Panama, Philippe surveys the results of the dredging operation on the Pacific side where he is proven right that the channels won’t silt up again after having studied the water currents. On hearing that there is a spate of widespread killing by a xenophobic band of rebels, Philippe and Amador board the train together in Panama city to save the women in their lives, Pauline and Maria. We are apprised of the fact that the United States has the legal right to intervene to save the American railroad (this is key to the final scenes) that runs from Colón to Panama City. Philippe finds Pauline in her lodgings and takes her to safety - the Dinglers’ abandoned mansion - where she declines his gentle advances, as it’s too soon after her husband’s death.

Admiral Walker reports to Senator JT Morgan  about his findings comparing the Nicaraguan Panamanian routes. Morgan insists on having a 3000 page report that nobody else in the Senate will read, so that he can control the entire process. Morgan is also worried by the progress Philippe is making in Panama, getting the French project back on track. He later visits JP Morgan senior to plot with him the downfall of the French Canal Company.

The main story then picks up again with the visit of De Lesseps and a horde of journalists and bigwigs to see the progress of the project, which, thanks to Philippe, is back on track. De Lesseps loves the limelight and demotes Philippe to the amazement of many, including La Veille, who is outraged. Philippe is visibly deflated, not helped by the imminent departure of Pauline for Paris where she has a young child to attend to. In the aftermath of the visit, Philippe contracts Yellow Fever and is on the verge of death when Pauline shares her ship’s berth with him to take him back to France.  She nurses him and he slowly recovers. They make love and he tells her about his childhood, where he was often bullied at school due to his parentage.This awakens memories in him of being rejected by his father who only wished to recognize Maurice. They discuss many things: she says he can have a wonderful career in France.Implicit is that they will marry. Why doesn’t Philippe propose? Does he already know that he is going back to Panama? One detail of a conversation that sets up the very last scene is that he asks her what she will miss most about Panama and she replies the fruit. 

However, during his convalescence in Paris, Philippe is visited by John Bigelow, the ex- American ambassador to France. Bigelow plants the seed of an idea in him: namely the American way of free enterprise and how to rescue the doomed project. Philippe mulls this over, and is very torn because of his recent betrothal to Pauline. He also needs to borrow money on a large scale, which can only be done in conjunction with his brother who works at the Credit Lyonnais, but who will almost certainly not leave his comfortable banking job for a pie-in-the-sky dream to salvage a failing infrastructure project. The urge for demonstrable career success is greater than his love for Pauline, and Philippe commits to buy in both his and his brother’s names the largest contracting firm on the Panama project (which probably wanted out anyway), Artigues and Sonderegger. He then informs Maurice that they will need a loan of 5 million francs and tries to convince him of his engineering methods that will save the project and enrich them. Maurice is not amused by Philippe’s proposal, but cannot refuse the fait accompli and accepts when Philippe explains the terms of the contract that he can negotiate with the Canal Company. The risk is that the Company will go bust before they get wealthy, but Philippe is convinced that his ideas of using underwater explosives to help the dredging and building evacuation bridges to avoid mudslides will enable them to accelerate the excavation processes and exceed their negotiated targets with the company to a great extent.

Philippe then has to inform Pauline of his decision to return to Panama. Not surprisingly, this does not go down well. She has already lost one husband to disease in Panama, a country that she equates with death. Both are broken-hearted.Philippe wanders the streets of Paris in obvious pain. He prays in a church but the outcome is never in doubt: He will return to Panama. The clock is ticking…He has to get rich before the company goes bankrupt.

He writes to Pauline, but she burns the letters without opening them.

Two of his engineering ideas are portrayed: the building of evacuation bridges so that the excavated mud doesn’t keep piling up, causing devastating mudslides that wipe out weeks of work. And the use of explosives in fissures of rock, which are then reduced to rubble, allowing the dredgers to move in. In one action scene, Philippe strips to his long johns and dives into the water to check that the explosives have been inserted correctly. Unbeknownst to him, the pool is teeming with poisonous, aggressive snakes that head towards him and are shot at from the side as Philippe hurriedly escapes.

Interspersed with this are an elaborate plot by JT Morgan with JP Morgan to scupper another French financing, while in the French parliament, la Chambre des Députés, politicians debate whether to allow yet another Canal Company financing or to allow the company to go bankrupt, which would devastate the middle classes. By this time, all the politicians are on the take and the bill is passed to much hysterical relief. But during the financing itself, a rumour is spread in a newspaper article that the aging Ferdinand De Lesseps has died, and the capital raise fails, sending the company into bankruptcy.

Maurice, from his opulent office overlooking the half-built Eiffel Tower, sends a telegram to Philippe that the game is up and Philippe departs Panama, after taking his leave from the devastated Amadors, as they hope for independence, and the squalid isthmus has no hope of standing alone economically without a canal. 

Both Philippe and Maurice have become very wealthy, and have bought a big national newspaper, which Marice runs. But all participants in the canal venture face a tribunal of inquiry. There is a suicide and one politician pleads guilty to taking a bribe. Georges Clémenceau, the future president, fights a duel to clear his name. All the politicians all get off lightly.

Gustave Eiffel is convicted of profiteering. Next up are Philippe and Maurice, who have become very wealthy. Aspersions are cast about the use of brothels for the men under Philippe’s watch, but aside from buying a private contractor to carry out excavation works with incentive criteria that had already been set, thereby enriching themselves, nothing incriminating can be found. However, it is a long way from Philippe’s personal dream of glory. They are fined and all participants have to buy worthless shares in a newly formed canal company. The fines put the Bunau-Varilla brothers under some financial pressure at a time when they are heavily invested in the newspaper company, and new printing presses are needed. Philippe desperately needs to find a buyer for the worthless new canal company shares that he owns.