Western Brotherhood bikers Willie Hickok and Richard “Cherry” Ganz meet Malcolm Price at a remote desert bar. Price gives them $50,000 and a photograph of Reggie Hammond, an African American they are being paid to kill. When two California Highway Patrol officers stop in, the bikers shoot them, and Price kills the witnessing bartender. Elsewhere, at a motorcycle racetrack, Tyrone Burroughs gives $50,000 and the same photograph to a mechanic. Suddenly, when San Francisco police detective Jack Cates tries to arrest them, the mechanic pulls his gun. Jack returns fire, hitting him and a gasoline pump. In the explosion, Tyrone escapes across the track through speeding motorcycles. When Jack finds the photograph inside his partially burnt bag, he recognizes Reggie as a convict he knows. The fire apparently destroys all traces of the mechanic’s gun, and when Jack’s fellow detectives, Ben Kehoe and Frank Cruise, arrive with Internal Affairs supervisor Blake Wilson, there is no evidence that Jack fired in self-defense. Jack claims he was on a stakeout to capture a drug kingpin named “Iceman,” but Wilson declares Iceman to be a fantasy and that Jack, who has a record of being “trigger-happy,” killed the mechanic without provocation. Jack visits Reggie in prison. The convict, due to be released the next day, is angry at Jack for never visiting him during his seven years behind bars. He refuses to help Jack with the Iceman investigation, and when Jack threatens to withhold the money he has been keeping for him, Reggie hits him. The guards put Reggie in solitary confinement until his release. Meanwhile, the three bikers meet Tyrone at “Barnstormers,” a San Francisco motorcycle bar. After berating Malcolm for making a mess at the desert bar, Tyrone gives him a bag filled with dynamite. Nearby, Cherry threatens a barmaid as he demands the whereabouts of his former girl friend, Angel Lee, who used to work there. The barmaid says Angel lives in the North Beach neighborhood. The next day, a police review board concludes Jack’s shooting was a “wrongful action,” which opens him to prosecution. Jack’s partner, Ben, warns him to forget his search for Iceman and concentrate on protecting himself. The next day, before his release from prison, Reggie talks with Kirkland Smith, an older African American prisoner who protected him for seven years and now reminds Reggie he has a debt to pay as soon as he gets his money. Outside the gate, Jack offers Reggie a ride to San Francisco in his Cadillac, but Reggie refuses and waits for the prison bus. Nearby, looking through binoculars, Cherry recognizes Jack as the cop who killed his brother, Albert Ganz, after Reggie had “ratted him out.” Cherry and Willie follow Jack to a diner, and as Jack sits at the counter, Cherry shoots at him through the diner window. The two bikers catch up with Reggie’s bus, kill the driver, and shoot out a front tire, sending the bus flipping into a truck. As the hit men approach the wreckage, Reggie holds them off with the driver’s gun. Approaching Highway Patrol sirens send the bikers fleeing. At a hospital, a doctor tells Jack his bulletproof vest saved his life, but he will be sore because a bullet fractured his clavicle. In the adjoining emergency room, police question Reggie, but Jack takes custody of the former prisoner and drives him into San Francisco. He asks Reggie why Iceman wants him dead, but gets no answer. Jack takes Reggie to his house, where he has parked Reggie’s Porsche sports car on the street. When Reggie pushes the remote key to unlock it, the car explodes. Jack drives Reggie to police headquarters, but when they arrive, Reggie stays at a telephone booth outside and calls old friends to ask for money to get out of town. Everyone turns him down. Inside, Blake Wilson suspends Jack and confiscates his badge and service pistol. Using the police computer’s digital identification kit, Jack builds composite portraits of the black escapee at the motorcycle race and the biker who shot at him in the diner. He gives the sketches to Ben to run through the department files. Accepting a ride with Jack, Reggie admits he and Albert Ganz once stole half a million dollars from Iceman, which is why the kingpin wants to kill him. The cash Jack has been holding for seven years is part of the loot. He also recognized one of the bikers as Cherry Ganz, Albert’s brother, whose Chinese girl friend works at Barnstormers. There, the barmaid remembers three bikers meeting a black man, whom she identifies as the man in Jack’s computer sketch. She gives him Angel Lee’s address. At that moment, one of Jack’s former arrestees confronts him, and a brawl ensues, until Reggie fires shots from the barmaid’s pistol. Jack telephones Ben for information on the sketches, and asks to meet him outside the station in five minutes. Ben reports that Cherry Ganz has a string of murders behind him, including two Highway Patrol officers. At the King Mei Hotel, Jack sends Reggie to Angel Lee’s room. Inside, Angel and Willie are in bed when Reggie knocks. Willie fires shots through the door. Cherry, who has parked his bike in the alley and climbed a fire escape, sees Jack running up the stairs and cannot believe he is still alive. During a gunfight, both Willie and Cherry jump into a trash dumpster and escape on their motorcycles. When Ben, Frank, and other officers arrive, Frank tells Jack they cannot identify the black man in his sketch. After Reggie and Jack trick Angel into revealing that Malcolm Price is Cherry’s contact man, Reggie tells Jack the one man who might know the killers is Kirkland Smith, who protected him in prison. When they visit the convict, Kirkland identifies Jack’s black suspect as a drug dealer named Tyrone Burroughs. He also knows that Malcolm Price lives at the Sunset Motel on the Beltway in San Francisco. Meanwhile, Iceman visits Malcolm Price and shoots him. Later, looking at Malcolm’s body in the morgue, Jack complains that Iceman is always a step ahead of him, and Reggie suggests Iceman might be a cop. Reggie also admits the real reason Iceman wants him dead is that he can identify him. Knowing that his police hearing is being held at that moment, Jack takes Reggie to the courthouse to identify Blake Wilson, but Reggie says Wilson is not Iceman. The judge, angry at the intrusion, sets a date for Jack’s murder trial. Meanwhile, Willie and Cherry go to Tyrone Burrough’s place and demand to know who killed Malcolm Price. Tyrone says Iceman himself did it, because police were getting close. Reminding them they still have a contract on Reggie, Tyrone directs them to call on Kirkland Smith’s daughter, Amy, who works at a Goodwill Store, because it is likely that Reggie will contact her. Before the bikers leave, Cherry kills Tyrone. Jack takes Reggie to the station to retrieve the ex-con’s $450,000 from his police locker, then tells him to get out of town. Instead, Reggie goes to the Goodwill Store to give Amy her father’s $75,000 for protecting him. Hiding nearby, Willie and Cherry take Reggie and Amy prisoner. Willie telephones Frank Cruise, the man he thinks is Iceman, at police headquarters to tell him he has Reggie, but will not kill him unless he receives an added $500,000 for Malcolm’s death. Nearby, Detective Joe Stevens informs Jack that his mystery man, Tyrone Burroughs, was found murdered, and that he had a lengthy record. Wondering why Ben and Frank had no information on Tyrone, Jack sees Frank leave the building and follows him to a North Beach club called the “Bird Cage.” When Frank arrives, he gives Willie and Cherry a bag filled with the blackmail money and tells them to finish the job. Reggie alerts Willie that Frank is not Iceman. At that moment, both Jack and Ben appear from different directions. Reggie points at Ben and declares, “That’s Iceman.” Ben admits to Jack he took the mechanic’s gun at the racetrack to set him up for murder. A gunfight ensues, in which Frank and Willie are shot dead, and Cherry is shot and pushed out a window. Ben takes Reggie hostage and tries to back out of the club, but Jack shoots Reggie through the shoulder in order to get to his abductor. Wounded, Ben drops Reggie, leaving himself open, and Jack kills him. After medical attendants put Reggie into an ambulance, Jack tells him they still have Frank’s $500,000, which nobody else knows about. He gives the bag to Amy Smith for safekeeping until Reggie gets out of the hospital.