After the elevators at a New York City skyscraper begin inexplicably malfunctioning, putting its passengers at risk, mechanic Mark Newman and reporter Jennifer Evans begin separate investigations. Newman gets resistance from superiors at his company, which manufactured the elevator, while additional elevator incidents cause several gruesome deaths. The police get involved and suspect that terrorists are responsible, but a far stranger explanation looms.

Charles Hodgson is a British aristocrat who decides to become a thief as a way of getting at his twin brother, Earl, a security expert who has built a supposedly impregnable vault in Tel Aviv, which holds a cache of diamonds. For the caper, Charles enlists Archie, a heist expert, and Sally. He also becomes acquainted with an American woman, Zelda Shapiro, who is in Israel looking for a new husband.