It is summer 1946 and Earl Swagger, former Marine and recipient of the Medal of Honor, feels he is an angry man with nowhere to go in the post-war peace.

[1] Right after the official ceremony of receiving the Medal of Honor in Washington, D.C., 1stSgt Earl Swagger (retired) is being approached by district attorney of Garland County Fred Becker and ex-FBI agent D. A. Parker.

The two men propose him a new job in Hot Springs, Arkansas to fight against organized crime and finally end the gambling and corruption of the city.

Next time, while supposedly on vacation, Frenchy finds the central office of the gambling network and reveals his research results to Swagger and Parker.

This results in Becker firing him from the team because of illegal way of gathering evidence (as Frenchy, in fact, broke into a telephone office to search the maps).

Swagger has shown knowledge of the city several times, pointing out important nuances during the operations, however claims that he's never been to Hot Springs before.

In the meanwhile, the governor of Arkansas orders a Highway Patrol unit to confiscate all heavy weaponry and bulletproof vests from the team, leaving them only with their handguns.

He's freed from prison by the crew of assassins who ambushed the raid team, but Swagger finds them in a place called Hard Bargain Valley and uses his Marine Issue M1A1 Thompson to kill all of them in a savage protracted gunfight, including Maddox.

Additionally the plot features two real-life persons from that period: American gangster Bugsy Siegel who was a major driving force behind large-scale development of Las Vegas and his friend, Chicago Outfit courier Virginia Hill.

Other real-life persons merely mentioned include Mickey Rooney, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Dick Powell and Alan Ladd.