Ray Breslin is a security expert who is hired to test an experimental top secret prison located on a ship. He allows himself to be imprisoned to find weaknesses in the security, but the plan goes awry. Through fighting with another inmate, Emil Rottmayer, and studying the daily routines of the guards, Breslin and Rottmayer deduce the ship's location and plan an escape. They stage a riot as a diversion and make their way to the deck. Breslin kills the head guard as they escape, but another inmate is shot. They escape by helicopter to Morocco, where they learn the entire operation was a set up to trap Breslin in the prison permanently.