A group of rogue U.S. Force Recon Marines, led by disenchanted Brigadier General Frank Hummel (Harris) and his second-in-command Major Tom Baxter (Morse), storm a heavily guarded naval weapons depot and steal a stockpile of deadly VX gas-armed M55 rockets, losing one of their own men in the process. The next day, Hummel and his men — along with newly-recruited Marine Captains Frye (Sporleder) and Darrow (Todd) — seize control of Alcatraz Island, taking eighty-one tourists hostage. Hummel threatens to launch the rockets against San Francisco unless the U.S. government pays him $100 million from a military slush fund, which he will distribute to his men and the families of Recon Marines who died on clandestine missions under his command but whose deaths were not compensated.
