Nate Foster is a young FBI Special Agent working to uncover highly classified terrorist plots. After some illegally imported caesium-137 is stolen, Nate is recruited by Angela Zamparo, a fellow FBI Special Agent, who suspects the involvement of white supremacist groups. Through Zamparo’s connections, Foster is introduced to a small group of Neo-Nazis led by Vince Sargent, a local leader who is familiar with their prime suspect, conservative talk radio host Dallas Wolf.
Wolf, a figurehead in the movement for his incendiary rhetoric, assembles a gathering of the largest and most influential groups in the northeast. With Sargent’s introductions, Foster becomes ingratiated in the movement and meets Andrew Blackwell, the leader of a premier white supremacist militia, as well as gaining Wolf’s attention by convincing him he can fund an expansion of his radio show.
Foster also becomes fast friends with Gerry Conway, a white collar engineer and family man, also with white supremacist sympathies. After earning Blackwell’s trust by saving him during an attack on a white power rally by anti-fascists, Foster is brought to a crude military complex operated by Andrew’s militia. There, Blackwell reveals that he has blueprints for the municipal water network of Washington, D.C. and is plotting an attack. The FBI begins to suspect that Wolf and Blackwell are working together after Foster meets Wolf at his home and discovers that his house sets off Foster’s Geiger counter. Foster attempts to integrate himself into a possible plot by offering Wolf a substantial financial investment.
Instead, Wolf becomes hostile and reports Foster to the FBI. It is revealed that he is merely an entertainer and does not believe in the cause, and that he has undergone radiation therapy for prostate cancer, which was registered by the Geiger counter. Blackwell is meanwhile also dismissed as a possible threat, as he appears to use the D.C. water network plans as a way to lure in potential recruits with promise of participating in an impending terror attack. With no further leads, the case is ordered to be closed by Foster’s and Zamparo’s superior. Angered at wasting his efforts, Foster prepares to have his cover identity leave the city.
