**SPOILERS** On the lamb in some fleabag hotel room in an unnamed and neutral country Russian escapee from the Soviet Union Major Ivan Kuchenko, Martin Landau, knows he's being watch by the KBG who have orders to ice him before he makes his way to the free and non-Communist world.
It's Kuchenko's soon to be executioner Commissar Vassiloff, John Van Dreelen, and his brutish hit-man Boris, Bob Kelljon, who've got all the cards in deciding just when Major Kuchenko is to be hit! With Boris wanting to knock off Kuchenko as soon as possible it's the Commissar who feels that killing him would be far too good for Kuchenko if in fact the major doesn't see it coming.
Being an expert in KGB torture methods that he inflicted on Kuchenko back in the Siberian gulags Commissar Vassiloff what's to make the major's last hours on earth as unpleasant as possible in having him not know just when the end will come for him. This sadistic swine goes so far to even risk his life by entering Kuchenko's hotel room, with Kuchenko pointing a gun on him, in order to play with him by offering the thirsty Kuchenko a swig, after gulping down one himself to show that it wasn't poisoned, of expensive Amontillado wine to clam his nerves down. What Kuchenko didn't know is that Vassiloff had been drinking so much of the spiked wine over the years that it wouldn't have any effect on him like it did Kuchenko who conked out moments after he drank it!
***SPOILERS*** Secretly planting a bomb in his hotel room when Kuchenko was out cold Vassiloff now waits for him to find it in the three hours her gave him or else he'll let Boris, who just can't wait, blow him away when the deadline is up. Vassiloff should have at first listened to Boris and let him do his job and not play this stupid and mindless game with Kuchenko. In fact it was Vassiloff ridicules and elaborate plan to whack Major Kuchenko that had a totally confused, in trying to follow it, Boris mess it all up by forgetting what in the hotel room was to set the hidden explosive off!
It's Kuchenko's soon to be executioner Commissar Vassiloff, John Van Dreelen, and his brutish hit-man Boris, Bob Kelljon, who've got all the cards in deciding just when Major Kuchenko is to be hit! With Boris wanting to knock off Kuchenko as soon as possible it's the Commissar who feels that killing him would be far too good for Kuchenko if in fact the major doesn't see it coming.
Being an expert in KGB torture methods that he inflicted on Kuchenko back in the Siberian gulags Commissar Vassiloff what's to make the major's last hours on earth as unpleasant as possible in having him not know just when the end will come for him. This sadistic swine goes so far to even risk his life by entering Kuchenko's hotel room, with Kuchenko pointing a gun on him, in order to play with him by offering the thirsty Kuchenko a swig, after gulping down one himself to show that it wasn't poisoned, of expensive Amontillado wine to clam his nerves down. What Kuchenko didn't know is that Vassiloff had been drinking so much of the spiked wine over the years that it wouldn't have any effect on him like it did Kuchenko who conked out moments after he drank it!
***SPOILERS*** Secretly planting a bomb in his hotel room when Kuchenko was out cold Vassiloff now waits for him to find it in the three hours her gave him or else he'll let Boris, who just can't wait, blow him away when the deadline is up. Vassiloff should have at first listened to Boris and let him do his job and not play this stupid and mindless game with Kuchenko. In fact it was Vassiloff ridicules and elaborate plan to whack Major Kuchenko that had a totally confused, in trying to follow it, Boris mess it all up by forgetting what in the hotel room was to set the hidden explosive off!