 Haunted by his failure to save a child from a suicidal madman, hostage negotiator Jeff Tally leaves Los Angeles to become police chief of upscale suburb Bristo Camino. But the ghosts of Tally s previous field come back to haunt him when two brothers and their mysterious traveling companion Mars Krupchek take a suburbanite family hostage after a failed robbery. Unbenknownst to the gunmen, their hostage is actually a numbers runner for West Coast kingpin Sonny Benza, and the house contains evidence that put him away. Facing heat from associates in New York, Benza kidnaps Tally s wife and daughter and blackmails him into procuring the incriminating evidence. But the situation escalates even further when Tally discovers that Mars is a serial killer who is eyeing the hostages, and possibly his accomplices, to be his next victims.