When CIA operative Miles Kendig deliberately lets KGB agent Yaskov get away, his boss threatens to retire him. Kendig beats him to it, however, destroying his own records and traveling to Austria where he begins work on a memoir that will expose all his former agency's covert practices. The CIA catches wind of the book and sends other agents after him, initiating a frenetic game of cat and mouse that spans the globe.
Roger Santet is a convicted murderer sprung from prison by the Sicilian clan headed by the aging Vittorio Manalese. They conspire to steal a large cache of jewels from an exhibit in Rome. As they are preparing for the heist, the mobster's American friend Tony Nicosia suggests that a better way to get the rocks would be to hijack the transport plane while it is en route to New York. The dogged inspector Le Goff is using all the available resources to thwart their plans. Though the heist itself is successful, Santet finds himself trapped by the mob because of his fling with Manalese's daughter-in-law.
In the early 20th century a village experienced a series of inexplicable murders. All the victims were young men who had been turned to stone. The perpetrator of these deaths was a being so repulsive that she transformed the onlooker using the power of her deadly stare. Much of the time the creature took the form of a beautiful and seductive woman, but during periods of the full moon she becomes a living horror, vicious and deadly. A professor has come to investigate the deaths, bringing with him his beautiful assistant whose knowledge of the Gorgon is more intimate than anyone would ever realise.
