Thom Christopher is an ordinary guy trying to make ends meet as a professor of psychology. One night, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time - teaching in a prison unit on the very night that a Mob-orchestrated escape plan is going to be put into action. The education wing, deep in the bowels of the prison, is taken over by armed felons who have very little to lose, and Christopher is taken hostage. In an ironic twist of fate, the professor's rescue depends upon his friend and drinking buddy, Houston hostage negotiator Richard McClain, and McClain's finely tuned SWAT team. A carefully synchronized prison breakout, designed to result in chaos and general confusion, is punctuated by erratic, diversionary gunfire that provides the opportunity for the Mob's man to make his getaway. Lives are lost. McClain, unwilling to let the brazen escape go unchallenged, embarks on a single-minded mission to hunt down the escapee and to bring him back to justice. He picks up a trail and follows it to Costa Rica, where he tracks his Underworld prey through dense jungle terrain and up a steep mountain, where a final confrontation between the adversaries settles a score for one of them.