Set in South Africa just after the dawn of the Cold War and of Apartheid, Theo, who is responsible for his university's annual student charity drive, is smitten by his parade Queen, Teresa, a gorgeous dramatic arts student. As their relationship thickens, cross-town university students abduct him as a prank, which abruptly turns into an assault. With elegant persuasion, Teresa orchestrates the apprehension by the police of his abductors. Theo cunningly escapes without serious injury, while she takes the initiative to coerce the abduction leader's parents, in recompense for their son's transgression, into making a significant donation to her university's charity. Soon after, the son's badly beaten body is dumped on Theo's apartment floor, with a ransom note tied to his neck typed on stationery emblazoned with a reversed swastika logo, demanding the release from custody of its 'White Supremacist' members in custody.
As symbols of their liberal institution, they are repeatedly attacked in ever more violent ways by the neonazi offspring of wartime Hitler sympathizers, now systematically infiltrating the recently elected government and influencing its policies toward hard line activism.
Their hopes of evading more attacks are shattered by an attempt on Theo's life in which his assailant, disguised as a police detective, expires. Alleged to be the equivalent of a cop killer, Theo finds shelter in the American Embassy and frantically reaches out for news paper support in his defense by enlisting the help of a hard driving, seductive sociology student Sharon, eager to become a political newspaper journalist. She assists him with research as the basis for a tantalizingly suggestive press report, exposing the deceased assailant as an erstwhile instructor of saboteurs, recruited to hamper South Africa's contribution to Britain's defense of North Africa.
The embittered survivors of the instructors' troop take revenge by kidnapping Teresa in broad daylight from a theatrical rehearsal to force Theo into the open. He anxiously marshals the help of his American host and the commanding officer of the special branch of the South African Police, to help find and liberate her. Theo leans heavily on Sharon and the senior American intelligence officer, to illuminate a clandestine commando training base north of the capital as the most likely place where Teresa could be held. In the ensuing helicopter raid, Teresa is recovered without permanent injury, but the kidnappers suffer numerous fatalities.
The event exposes the alarming extent to which infiltration of the country's security forces by the fascists has become and seriously embarrasses the National Party Government. Theo takes cover in the home of a friend to study for his finals and upon emerging finds that Teresa was taken to a neurological institution following a narrow escape from being raped in her own bed at home. Outraged Theo takes Sharon with him to interview the rapist in prison and determines the identity of a warlord in Nelspruit who hired him. They continue their journey to learn more about the warlord, and to escape even more violent attacks they hide away on his family's Bushvelt farm. During a country dance party of their farming neighbors they become aware of four khaki-clad youths who attempt to follow them back to the farm. They lose their tail by manipulation on twisty farm roads and arrive home safely, but seriously concerned.
