A black clad and masked gang bursts into a hotel in Philadelphia where the director of the FBI is giving a speech, They open fire gravely wounding the director, killing the agent in charge of the Philadelphia FBI office as well as a deputy commissioner of police. Also critically wounded is retired FBI agent Jeff Bauer, the long time pruner of FBI Chief Inspector Ben Douglas who is sent to Philadelphia to lead the investigation and temporarily head the office. Douglas is confronted with an office in disarray and no solid clues as to the identities of the attackers. Douglas takes with him as send in command Inspector Albert Washington. Douglas, Washington, Bauer and Bauer's wife Amy King Bauer an active special agent had all worked together years before on the Philadelphia Bank Robbery squad. Douglas has personal reasons for bringing the shooters to justice. The gang quickly strikes again robbing and shooting up a bank in a New Jersey suburb. One of the robbers is shot and left dead in the bank parking lot. At the autopsy a tattoo of Nazi SS runes. The body is that of a teen-age boy who is identified as a student at a private academy outside Philadelphia. Investigation determines that the Holtz Academy for boys is headed By Dr. Martin Von Passnau an immigrant from Germany. His wife his headmistress at Oak Hill, an academy for girls, the sister academy of Holtz. German officials advise the FBI that the Von Passnau family had strong ties to the Nazi Party in World War 2, including high ranking officers in the Waffen SS. As investigation starts to focus on Von Passnau and his academy a sees of attacks are launched in Philadelphia. An RPG is launched into the hotel where Douglas is staying. A jewish Community center is burned down. Three RPGs are fired into the museum ship USS Olympia a cruiser from the Spanish -American war. After each action a press release is made claiming credit for the Waffen SS Unit of the New Nazi Party. Undercover agents are inserted to the two schools and obtain enough evidence to obtain search and arrest warrants. At Oak Hill FBI agents, police and state Child protective officials round up a group of teen age girls training to be the "breeders" of the new master race. Von Passnau has fled from Holtz with his small group of "Waffen SS" troops nd there immediate leader Holtz's pedophile PE instructor Emil Krebs. They move into their last redoubt, a heavily fortified house in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Douglas and his people, including the FBI Hostahge Rescue Team are faced with resolving the situation without killing a group of teenage boys. Such an action would unleash a barrage of revulsion in the press. the story moved to a violent conclusion in the pine barrens and on the streets of Philadelphia.