Rock (The)

The(ir) Blurb...

It's a quiet day in San Francisco. There are eighty-one civilians on a tour of Alcatraz, the prison famous for the fact that no prisoner had ever successfully escaped. During one of the tours, Marine General Francis Xavier Hummel takes the civilians hostage, with the help of other Marines. He has fifteen rockets of deadly VX gas at his disposal, ready to launch at San Francisco. His reason for doing this is simple. He has seen Marines under his command get killed in combat without a military burial or benefits to their families. He makes a threat to the F.B.I.: give the fallen Marines recognition or he will launch the VX rockets. After learning that one rocket is enough to take out sixty or seventy thousand people, the F.B.I. sends for their top chemical weapons expert: Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, engaged to his pregnant girlfriend. While trying to figure out a countermeasure to the current situation, the F.B.I. is forced to resort to John Patrick Mason, an ex-con who broke out of Alcatraz in 1962.