When American war correspondent Mike Morrison (Robert Mitchum) stops off in Athens on the eve of the German occupation, he's duped into carrying a list of Allied spies to British intelligence in London. Chased across Greece by ruthless Gestapo chief Konrad Heisler (Stanley Baker), Morrison hides out with a peasant woman (Gia Scala), who arranges to smuggle him out of the country. Making his way back to Athens, Morrison is aided by resistance member Lisa Kyriakides (Elisabeth Mueller), unaware that she's Heisler's ex-mistress, and that unless she betrays Morrison, the Nazis will kill her children.