The Rock

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Except for the Red Sea Trading Company. What is that?

HUMMEL

Identify yourself.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

FBI Director Womack, General.

HUMMEL

You'll be particularly interested: It's a slush fund where the Pentagon keeps proceeds from illegal arms sales.

GENERAL KRAMER

Frank, Jesus, this is classified information.

WOMACK

(stunned)

Is this true?

General Kramer, embarrassed, nods yes.

HUMMEL

If you want the money back, you'll have to tell the attorney General and the boys down at Justice where it came from. Good luck.

Hayden Sinclair returns to the table.

HAYDEN SINCLAIR

General, I've just spoken to the President and he is clear as hell on this: We will not negotiate with you and we do not care if...

HUMMEL

Someone please gag that man.

(beat)

Alert the media, I launch the gas. Refuse payment, I launch the gas. It is just after midnight. You have 36 hours – all of today and half of tomorrow, until 12 noon – to transfer the money. Don't even consider the standard counter measure, General.

GENERAL KRAMER

What's the potential casualty rate of a single rocket armed with V.X., General Peterson?

GENERAL PETERSON

In a dense urban area, sixty, seventy...

RAYDEN SINCLAIR

Well that's not so bad...

GENERAL PETERSON

Thousand. Seventy thousand. Dead. one teaspoon will kill all living organisms in a three story office building. Get the point?

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

What did Hummel mean by "standard countermeasure" General?

GENERAL PETERSON

Napalm. Standard poison gas can be neutralized by napalm. It burns it up – consumes it upon detonation. The problem is that V.X. gas is ten times more toxic and designed to withstand napalm. Hummel must know about Willy Peter, General.

GENERAL KRAMER

'Course he does.

(explaining to others)

"Willy Peter," short for "White Phosphorous Incendiary Device," still in its test phase. It detonates at 6,000 degrees, enough to burn up V.X.

(dawning on him)

That explains Hummel's time frame. He knows we're not operational. What would it take, General?

GENERAL PETERSON

To equip a flight of F-16s with Willy Peter in 36 hours? An act of God.

(off Kramer's look)

All right, we can try. But view the use of Willy Peter as a secondary initiative.

GENERAL KRAMER

Then on to our primary initiative.

(hits intercom button)

Send in SEAL Team Leader Anderson.

(to FBI Womack)

Who's your best chemical biological man?

AGENT WOOD

(rises)

I'll find out.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Tell him to pack a bag for San Francisco.

EXT. GOODSPEED'S HOUSE – ROOFTOP – NIGHT

Tarpaper and gravel roof. Candles burning. Loretta Lynn's "Stand by Your Man" on the boom box. AMONGST THE RUSTY SUPPORT SCAFFOLDS of an old sign from the 120's –

Carla and Goodspeed are, to put it delicately, madly passionately athletically fucking. Standing up. They both have robes on. A CORDLESS PHONE RINGS. Again.

CARLA

Don't stop... do no stop.

GOODSPEED

Shit, shit, shit what time is it.

(fumbles for phone)

Hello.

(pause)

I'll be downstairs in ten minutes.

Goodspeed hangs up. The couple stares at each other. Carla's seen this look before...

GOODSPEED

I've got to go to San Francisco.

CARLA

No. I'm sorry, but NO. I need you here with me. We need to talk about this...

GOODSPEED

I've got to go. She grabs his arm. I can't... I cannot deal with this right now...

(softly)

Bill, I am very Catholic. And very pregnant. And very unmarried. Help me with this.

She turns away from him. He pulls her back...

GOODSPEED

I love you. I will marry you. I just didn't plan on this, that's all. Tell you what: come to San Francisco.

CARLA

Really?

(smiles)

Really?

GOODSPEED

It's probably just a training exercise. Check into a hotel, order up some champagne, I'll finish up my business and...

CARLA

... We'll finish what we started. Baby, are you sexy in those boots...

Goodspeed walks off in COWBOY BOOTS, robe and boxers...

INT. PENTAGON – SITUATION ROOM – NIGHT U.S.N.

Commander CHARLES ANDERSON, 35, just the hardest looking man you've ever seen, stands before the group. Anderson is a Navy SEAL, an Incursion Team Leader. Before Anderson are AERIAL RECON PHOTOS of Alcatraz.

COMMANDER ANDERSON

A precision night drop is out due to the full moon. Likewise on a frontal, seaside attack: at the first shot, Hummel might launch. My second in command is working on an attack from within the prison.

(beat)

The idea is to penetrate the tunnels under the prison, undetected, emerge in its center, and jump the marines from behind – take their rocket positions without a shot fired. But I need better intelligence.

GENERAL KRAMER

You've studied the architectural plans.

COMMANDER ANDERSON

They're useless. Alcatraz was originally a Civil War fort. It's been ripped up and rebuilt for years. Under there is a maze of shit, excuse my language.

(beat)

What I need is personal, firsthand intelligence on the island's tunnels.

 
CAMERA FOCUSES ON F.B.I
 

Director Womack, who gives a very significant look to CIA Director AMWAY.

GENERAL KRAMER

The former warden?

AGENT WOOD

Died in 1979. The guards we contacted are useless. There was a janitor, "Alcatraz Al". He worked there for twenty years, but he died in 1983.

GENERAL PETERSON

Didn't three guys escape? I thought I saw a movie about it.

AGENT WOOD

It's a Hollywood myth. No one's escaped Alcatraz and lived.

FBI Director trades a very significant look with CIA Director Amway. Amway clears his throat. He is older, very old school. Everyone turns to him.

CIA DIRECTORY AMWAY

There is someone who can help us.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

The CIA Director and I have something to discuss in private.

Womack and Amway rise and exit together. Everyone else sits there, confused.

INT. PENTAGON – CORRIDOR – NIGHT

Womack and Amway exit into the corridor. They huddle tightly against the wall. Sotto voice:

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

You're not actually suggesting...

CIA DIRECTORY AMWAY

The man spent every night for six months making a dry-run of his escape. He knows every inch of that island. We have to, Jim.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

I am very uncomfortable about this.

INT. WOLFBURG PENITENTIARY – CELL BLOCK – NIGHT

A long row of cells. CAMERA slowly DOLLIES past cell after cell. Sullen INMATES stare blankly at us...

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK (O.S.)

I knew, I knew someday, this would come back to bite us.

CAMERA moves through a door marked "ISOLATION." At the end of a gloomy corridor is a CAST-IRON DOOR.

BACK TO THE PENTAGON CORRIDOR

CIA DIRECTORY AMWAY

It won't bite anyone – if handled correctly. When was the last time you saw him?

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

When he escaped from San Quentin.

CIA DIRECTORY AMWAY

The man was an S.A.S. trained killer.

BACK TO WOLFBURG – IN THE ISOLATION CELL

TWO FEDERAL MARSHALS open the cell's steel locking bar. They push open the door. Dark inside. A MAN sits on the bed.

CIA DIRECTORY AMWAY

Can we risk letting him out?

A SHAFT OF LIGHT cuts across the cell floor.

CIA DIRECTORY AMWAY

The question is: can we not?

THE SHAFT OF LIGHT slices the face of JOHN PAUL MASON. He is British, at least once was, imprisoned without trial for 33 years on U.S. soil. For now, we have no idea why.

EXT. WASHINGTON D.C. – DULLES AIRPORT HANGAR – NIGHT

Raining. An F.B.I GULFSTREAM 4 JET sits on the tarmac.

EXT. FBI GULFSTREAM – NIGHT

FBI Director Womack sits with FRANCIS REYNOLDS, 30, an Assistant U.S. Attorney from the Justice Dept. Goodspeed sits across the aisle.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

I'm told you're our best chemical weapons man, Goodspeed. What's your education?

GOODSPEED

B.A. Columbia. M.A. and P.H.D., Johns Hopkins, biochemistry and toxicology.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Excellent. What do you know about V.X. gas?

Pause. Goodspeed stares at Womack.

GOODSPEED

This isn't a training exercise, is it sir.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

No Goodspeed. It's not a training exercise.

HOLD ON Goodpeed's reaction, and...

CUT TO:

EXT. SAN FRANCISCO – FEDERAL BUILDING – DAWN

Dawn breaks over San Francisco. A BLACK SEDAN and BLACK SUBURBANS pull up to the FBI's West Coast office. Goodspeed, Womack and Reynolds get out, go inside.

INT. FBI – OBSERVATION ROOM – MORNING

We watch Mason being led into an INTERROGATION ROOM, his legs in irons, his hands cuffed behind him.

We are watching through a TWO-WAY MIRROR, and WIDEN TO: Womack, Goodspeed, Reynolds and ERNEST SANCHEZ, S.F. Bureau Agent in Charge, are watching Mason. Sanchez is a gruff guy with the subtlety of a heart attack.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

The following is a state secret. Disclose it to any party and you will be subject to prosecution. His name is John Mason. A British national incarcerated on Alcatraz island in 1962, escaped in 1963.

AGENT SANCHEZ

Director, no one's ever escaped from Alcatraz...

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

I'm telling you facts, Agent Sanchez. Do not argue and do not question. He was recaptured and sent to San Quentin, from which he escaped in February, 1976. He's been held at Wolfburg since. He has no identity. He does not exist. Understood?

(turns to Sanchez)

I want one thing: how he escaped Alcatraz – specifically the route he took through the island's tunnels.

AGENT SANCHEZ

You want him conscious or unconscious afterward?

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Don't even entertain it. This man laughs at strong arm tactics. dodium pentathol doesn't work either.

GOODSPEED

Why's he going to help us now?

U.S. ATTORNEY REYNOLDS

(hands Womack Pardon)

Mason's papers are in order, sir.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Because I'm willing to give him what he wants, Goodspeed – a full pardon.

AGENT SANCHEZ

Steep price for some information.

(waves Pardon away)

I don't need that to get what you want.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

Sanchez – try subtlety.

AGENT SANCHEZ

It's my middle name.

(to Goodspeed)

Watch kid, maybe you'll learn something.

Sanchez exits.

FBI DIRECTOR WOMACK

(grumbles)

I ask for an interrogator and what do I get...

IN THE INTERROGATION ROOM

Mason looks around. He focuses on the mirror. He stares right through at Goodspeed. Goodspeed is fascinated, unnerved.

GOODSPEED

(to himself)

Jesus look at this guy.

INT. FBI – INTERROGATION ROOM – MORNING

Sanchez walks in, sipping coffee. Mason sits there, eyes forward.

SANCHEZ

I'm FBI Special Agent in Charge Sanchez.

Sanches sits. Mason stares at the table.

MASON

In charge of what? Fucking me over for another three decades?

SANCHEZ

(congenial)

Hey. Easy. I just want to talk.

MASON

You know what FBI stands for Sanchez? Fucking Bloody Idiots. I don't want to talk to you.

A pause. Sanchez glares at Mason.

SANCHEZ

Just some questions about Alcatraz. It's a tourist attraction now. You remember Alcatraz, Mason.