Ian McGruder is a ghost who lived in the early 19th century. As the son of immigrant parents, he was training to go into the financial business when he learned of a plot by wealthy plantation and big business owners to control the pace and timing of new patents that affected industrial development of the newly formed American republic. When he somehow appears to three young men in the Deep South in the 1970's as a ghost he is as surprised as the young men. He tells them what he learned before his death and convinces them that the same unscrupulous group is still operational almost 200 years later. As they search for past victims of the what they suspect, they encounter two other ghosts who join with them in an attempt to identify the current members of the group. Several attempts to kill the young men fail and the methods they use to get the evidence they need are unorthodox to say the least. To stop the powerful group they use every method at their disposal, eventually exacting revenge for the death of two of the ghosts.