Wielding a gun, Edward Smalley invades the office of attorney J. Marvin Bean. The attorney has no idea what this is all about until forced to remember an incident in World War II when Smalley had been accused of treason, and Bean was his court-appointed military attorney. The trial was cancelled before Smalley was given a chance to exonerate himself; the charges were dropped, but the accused man feels that he has never truly been cleared.

A "surfer bum","600 miles from a wave", is roaming the back-roads of the U.S. in his woody wagon when it breaks down. His "rescuers" include a small town sheriff who has a habit of his prisoners escaping and then being hunted down and murdered by his bloodhounds. When the surfer is seen as a threat to report the goings-on he is arrested and is next in line to "escape".

Police authorities in Chicago are seeking serial killer "Georgie Porgie." His M.O. is to murder blondes with a "cheap" reputation. He was thought to have "gone south for the winter" after a killing in Tennessee. But he has returned to Chicago and kills a woman in the middle of a strip club. Georgie Porgie is somewhere on the Illinois Tollway. However, the manhunt is complicated by a missile convoy moving through the Chicago area.