A sleazy but ingenious criminal masterminds a heist at a sold-out sports arena. He hires a motley crew of henchmen, seduces the middle-aged head cashier, and plans some brutal ruses to elude the law. But he's his own worst enemy.

Dr. Frank Harlow is in the process of trying to save a man badly beaten by two gangsters whom he identifies to the police. When the victim dies the charge becomes murder and Harlow hightails it to the far woods where he finds a job as clerk Roger Condon in a sporting-goods store. Harlow's plan is to lay low until the gangsters forget about him. But complications arise from two different sectors. First, Harlow falls in love with the local beauty Laurie Maitland and second, the murderers find out where he is hiding.

A cross-country airliner, whose passengers include a nuclear physicist, a rocket expert, and a mathematical genius, is drawn beyond radar range by an unknown, unbreakable force.