John Lee is a hired gun who must pay a debt to Asian crime boss Terence Wei. His final mission is to travel to Manhattan to kill the 7-year-old son of the cop responsible for the death of Wei's son during a drug buy. However, Lee develops a conscious and cannot pull the trigger on the child. He knows this will make him a target and that his mother and sister in Shanghai are living on borrowed time. Trying to return to China, Lee enlists the aid of master forger Meg Coburn to construct a phony passport. But before the job is done, Wei's trigger men attack and Lee and Coburn begin their long flight, pursued through New York City.