Could there really be a conspiracy to re-establish communist control over the Czech Republic and possibly all of Eastern Europe? Professor Richard Rouse, an American teaching English in a Czech university tries to imagine such an unlikely thing happening as he helps a former student, Radim Sykora, discover the whereabouts of his father who has disappeared at the hands of the secret police just two years before the Czech's Velvet Revolution ousted the communists in 1989. Richard is aided by Lenka Ondrova, a beautiful young Czech woman history professor as the two of them are drawn further into the conspiracy when they help rescue Radim's mother who has been kidnapped and held captive by a mentally unbalanced former communist party official. Meanwhile Lenka's best friend, professor Jana Putnova of Charles University in Prague is ruthlessly murdered by the Red Panthers as the neo-communist call themselves in what appears to have been a grisly streetcar accident. Richard joins forces with the resident CIA agent at the American Embassy in Prague, courageous Czech police inspector and a grumpy US Marine Corps helicopter pilot and his squad of Marines as they seek to rescue Lenka who has been kidnapped and marked for death by the Red Panthers.