Casey Ryback has now retired from the Navy and is now a chef at the Mile High Cafe in Denver, Colorado. Ryback taking his niece Sarah Ryback on a vacation. They board a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles. Travis Dane takes the train hostage and starts using the train as a control center in his effort to take control of a top-secret government outer space super-weapon. Dane built the weapon but was fired by the government before it was deployed. He has since hooked up with shadowy Middle Eastern terrorists who have offered him 1 billion dollars to use the satellite to blow up the Eastern seaboard by targeting a nuclear reactor that is located underneath the Pentagon. Dane lets the Pentagon know that he's got control of the weapon by using it to blow up a Chinese chemical plant. Officials can't stop him because they can't locate his headquarters...

1950's Los Angeles is the seedy backdrop for this intricate noir-ish tale of police corruption and Hollywood sleaze. Three very different cops are all after the truth, each in their own style: Ed Exley, the golden boy of the police force, willing to do almost anything to get ahead, except sell out; Bud White, ready to break the rules to seek justice, but barely able to keep his raging violence under control; and Jack Vincennes, always looking for celebrity and a quick buck until his conscience drives him to join Exley and White down the one-way path to find the truth behind the dark world of L.A. crime.