A chance encounter with an old friend destroys attorney Robert Clayton Dean's (Will Smith) fast-track career and happy home life when he is framed for murder by a corrupt intelligence official. As an administrator on loan from the State Department to the National Security Agency, Thomas Brian Reynolds (Jon Voight) appropriates the vast resources of his department to commit the perfect crime and conceal a political cover up of immense proportions. Dean's only hope to reclaim his life and prove his innocence is a man he's never met, a mysterious underground information broker and ex-intelligence operative known only as Brill (Gene Hackman).