When eight immigrants arrived at the Baltimore Federal Courthouse to be sworn in as citizens they didn’t give a thought to the trial next door of five terrorists charged with blowing up a federal building. Baltimore Sun Reporter Mark Shrader did care about that trial. His wife and unborn child had been killed in that explosion, but in spite of his pleas to cover the case he was instead ordered to write a Sunday Supplement article on the new citizens.

Then the terrorists escaped their guards and took them all hostage. Mark Shrader had prayed that someday he would have the chance for vengeance on his wife’s killers. Now his chance had come.

Mark Shrader asked the immigrants to help him fight back and several of them agreed. As they organized their attack on the killers, hostage Le Thai Mai’s grown son, a rookie Baltimore police officer, embarked on a desperate and unauthorized plan to save his mother’s life.