Sylvia de Matteo, an American single mother, is taken hostage by terrorists during a political assassination at Stazione Centrale, Milan’s train station. She is seized at gunpoint and thrown into the back of a van. Moments later, a Paris-bound train with Sylvia's fiancé and ten-year old daughter aboard departs Centrale without Sylvia. The terrorists drive Sylvia to a warehouse where she is imprisoned in a cell. When the terrorists discover Sylvia's father is a wealthy Wall Street investment banker, they demand a ransom for her safe release. Milan's anti-terrorism police, DIGOS, aggressively pursue the terrorists and eventually close in on them. But the terrorist leader knows it will only be hours before they are captured. He blindfolds Sylvia and drives her at night to a remote village in the Italian Alps where he thinks they will be safe. DIGOS receives a photo of the terrorist and Sylvia in the alps and close in.