When a general's daughter (Leslie Stefanson), an army captain in psychological operations, is found murdered, two warrant officers (John Travolta, Madeleine Stowe) are brought in to investigate. The young woman was staked down with tent poles, strangled, and presumably raped. But what the investigators find is even more bizarre, relating back to her days at West Point and involving the general (James Cromwell) himself and his aide (Clarence Williams III). The daughter's one confidant (James Woods) also ends up as an apparent suicide and is assumed to be the culprit. Cover-ups and sexual scandals rampage throughout the film. Timothy Hutton appears as on an on-base officer.