 It s a quiet day in San Francisco. There are 81 civilians on a tour of Alcatraz, the prison famous for the fact that no prisoner had ever successfully escaped. During one of the tours, General Francis X. Hummel takes the civilians hostage, with the help of other marines. He has 15 rockets of deadly V.X. gas at his disposal, ready to launch at San Francisco. His reason for doing this is simple: he has seen Marines under his command get killed in combat without a military burial or benefits to their families. He makes a threat to the FBI: give the fallen Marines recognition or he will launch the V.X. rockets. After learning that one rocket is enough to take out sixty or seventy thousand people, the FBI sends for their top Chemical Weapons expert: Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, engaged to his pregnant girlfriend. While trying to figure out a countermeasure to the current situation, the FBI is forced to resort to John Mason, an ex-con who broke out of Alcatraz in 1963.