Frank McBain, Gary Busey, is a Los Angeles cop and former CIA operative who left the agency after a botched mission that cost his partner Jack Benson his life. His failure earns him the contempt of his peers and the animosity of U.S. Army lieutenant Devon Shepard Darlanne Fluegel, a woman entangled in a complicated love triangle with the two men, and the suspicion that he may have let Benson die to keep Shepard close. McBain’s stubborn pride nicknamed him “Bulletproof,” a moniker born from his uncanny ability to survive multiple gunshot wounds, and he keeps the thirty-nine projectiles that should have ended him sealed away as a bizarre memento in a mason jar.
Meanwhile, intelligence uncovers a secret camp tucked 300 miles south of the Mexican border, where Latin American communists and Arabic insurgents are trained under the banner of the anti-American People’s Liberation Army. To justify a diplomatic strike, top army generals arrange a convoy of a brand-new, nearly impervious tank prototype—the MBT-90, code-named “Thunderblast”—across the border and into PLA territory, hoping the militants will hijack it. Unbeknownst to them, Shepard is assigned to escort duty for the convoy. A revolutionary group led by Captain Pantaro stops the convoy, but the insurgents prove more radical than anticipated: most of the U.S. personnel are quickly killed, and a handful of survivors, including Shepard and her friend Sergeant O'Rourke L.Q. Jones, are captured and brought to the PLA camp along with the MBT-90.
There, Shepard confronts two men in charge: PLA General Maximiliano Brogado René Enríquez and his harsh Libyan adviser, Colonel Kartiff Henry Silva, who openly scorn the notion of American women gaining independence. After this disaster, McBain is recalled to the CIA for a clandestine, solo mission to retrieve the prototype. Learning that his former partner’s grieving girlfriend is among the captives hardens his resolve, and he accepts the dangerous assignment to redeem himself. Back at the camp, Kartiff and Brogado discover the tank is sabotaged from within, outfitted with an electroshock device that prevents its use by unauthorized personnel. They threaten to kill more of Shepard’s squadmates unless she can disable the security system.
