Young professional Stuart Dempsey (Danny Nucci) begins his move from Chicago to New York City with a strange encounter with a pair of mysterious men on a train. Things don't get much more comfortable once he starts his job as an assistant to the demanding editor of a daily newspaper, Max Kaufman (David Carradine). But things begin to look brighter when he lucks into a sublet of a rent-controlled apartment that apparently includes a beautiful woman, Daphne (Victoria Sanchez). As it happens, the apartment's real owner is an international assassin named Jaguar, who has plans to kill the visiting Russian president. The FBI and CIA -- and Daphne -- think Dempsey is Jaguar, and Dempsey can't get Kaufman to believe the dangerous turns his life is taking in the big city. Meanwhile, Jaguar adds Dempsey to his list of future hits.