Decades ago, the Soviet Union placed a network of living time bombs in the United States--ordinary people programmed to carry out specific terror missions whenever they were to hear a certain poem recited over the telephone. They've lived their lives as citizens of the U.S., primed to incite a war at any time . . . Now, in a new era of detente, a Russian agent refuses to accept the growing peace between the superpowers--an agent who knows how to activate the long-buried terrorists. And only one man Grigori Borzov (Bronson--Death Wish, The Dirty Dozen), with the help of the beautiful Soviet agent Barbara (Lee Remick--Days of Wine and Roses), has any chance of stopping him.