When the DEA shut down its dummy corporation operation codenamed SWORDFISH in 1986, they had generated $400 million which they let sit around; fifteen years of compound interest has swelled it to $9.5 billion. A covert counterterrorist unit called Black Cell, headed by the duplicitious and suave Gabriel Shear, wants the money to help finance their raisethestakes vengeance war against international terrorism, but its all locked away behind superencryption. He brings in convicted hacker Stanley Jobson, who only wants to see his daughter Holly again but cant afford the legal fees, to slice into the government mainframes and get the money.