A group of rogue United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance, led by disenchanted Brigadier general (United States) Frank Hummel and his second-in-command Major Tom Baxter, storm a heavily guarded naval weapons depot and steal a stockpile of deadly VX (nerve agent)-armed M55 (rocket) rockets, losing one of their own men in the process. The next day, Hummel and his men — along with newly-recruited Marine Captains Frye and Darrow — seize control of Alcatraz Island, taking eighty-one tourists hostage. He 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.