A sleek motorboat transports Hong Kong mobster Lyle Mason and his Asian associate to a yacht off the coast of Southern California. Waiting on board is Frank Dalilo, a small time hustler who is about to have his shot at the big time. There’s something going down, but Special Agent Jeffries and his FBI surveillance team aren’t exactly sure what. Before they can find out, the Asian, using an electronic device, discovers the FBI bug on the yacht. At gunpoint, Mason forces Dalilo into his speedboat and now, two approaching FBI boats split up, one seizing the yacht, the other chasing Mason. A wild gunfight ensues, the Asian is killed, Dalilo grabs the wheel from him, and races for a breakwater.
In pursuit at full throttle, the FBI boat hits the breakwater and explodes. Mason’s bullet riddled boat reaches the beach where Daniel McKenna, a ruggedly handsome, thirty something cop, his wife Rachel, and fellow cops Cass Turner, street smart and tough with a sexy smile and a body to match, and her boyfriend are picnicking. Dalilo and Mason blow away Cass’s boyfriend, hold McKenna’s wife hostage and hijack their car. McKenna leaps onto the hood of the moving vehicle and takes two of Dalilo’s bullets in the face as his wife Rachel grabs the wheel and tries to crash the car. Dalilo shoots her as the car flips over. Rachel and Mason are dead. Dalilo gets away, while McKenna gets shot in the face. At the hospital, McKenna, his face wrapped in bandages, is alive but will require extensive plastic surgery. He lies on a gurney beside Mason’s sheet covered corpse. A mobster lawyer shows up looking for Dalilo, and mistakes Mason’s corpse for McKenna. He thinks it’s the cop who’s dead. FBI agent Jeffries, standing nearby, seizes on the mix-up. He makes McKenna a proposition. To get Dalilo, McKenna must become Lyle Mason. With the use of a picture, the plastic surgeon can make it happen. McKenna, with revenge on his mind, takes the identity of Lyle Mason. Only nobody told his former partner, Cass Turner, who is out to avenge the deaths of both her boyfriend and her partner, McKenna. The FBI arranges for Lyle Mason to escape from the hospital. Meanwhile, Dalilo, hiding out in an iron foundry, hears about it on the news. He wants Mason dead, but not until they complete their deal which will bring Dalilo three million dollars. Escaping a deadly confrontation with his former partner Cass, McKenna slips into a seedy motel where Lyle Mason’s past comes looking for him. His sexy flame, Danielle, shows up, makes love to him, then holds a gun to his head, accusing him of being an impostor. Her Lyle never made love like that. She pulls the trigger, but McKenna had already unloaded the gun. He ties up Danielle and holds her captive in the bath tub. Dalilo’s men find him. They must stay with Mason until the deal is completed. This leaves McKenna unable to move and the FBI in the dark. While stopping for cigarettes, McKenna deliberately provokes a Mexican gang hanging out in front of the convenience store. Guns are drawn, bullets fly, Dalilo’s men drop and McKenna saves the life of Cass who is responding to the call. He escapes with the only surviving thug, and knocks him out in the confusion. When the thug comes to, he finds himself dangling from a rope high above the ground. McKenna wants the location of the meeting. He starts to cut the rope, the thug talks. It’s the Iron Works.
Meanwhile, the FBI learns that the deal is not drugs as they suspected. Mason was going to pay Dalilo for a microchip essential for star wars missile technology. The CIA has been watching from a distance and now wants to take over. There will be no hit of Dalilo. They want to find out who’s behind the deal. This doesn’t sit well with McKenna, who is consumed with revenge. On his way to the meeting, he’s collared by Cass. She’s dangerously close to pulling the trigger, but he blurts out some information that only the real McKenna would know. Now, believing his story, they decide to trash the CIA plan and nail Dalilo at the Iron Works. The film culminates in a tense, action-packed sequence where McKenna and Cass battle Dalilo and his men through the precarious catwalks of the foundry. In the end, Dalilo and his valuable chip are permanently put away—in the molten iron.