Gene Hackman stars as Johnny Gallagher, a Special Forces Master Sergeant#United States in the United States Army who is assigned to escort a prisoner, an Army deserter named Thomas Boyette (Tommy Lee Jones), from West Berlin back to the United States. When Boyette escapes, Gallagher pursues him and discovers that Boyette is actually a professional assassin hired to kill the leader of the Soviet Union (clearly resembling Mikhail Gorbachev) after a meeting in Chicago with the President of the United States. Gallagher is joined by his ex-wife Eileen (Joanna Cassidy), a Lieutenant colonel (United States) in the Judge Advocate General Corps of the U.S. Army, and Chicago police Lt. Milan Delich (Dennis Franz). Sergeant Gallagher is later confined to the base. Later, when one of his ex-wife's people is killed and fearing that she's in danger, the sergeant escapes and saves her just as some people are trying to kill her. The sergeant and his ex-wife learn that something is happening in Chicago. They travel to the city and the Sergeant Gallagher asks a cop he knows to help him. Sergeant Gallagher finds out that disarmament talks are taking place in Chicago.