Roguish, Indiana Jones-like, fedora and leather jacket-wearing American adventurer and black marketeer Jeff Williams is hired to steal a priceless, jewel-encrusted, gold statue of Buddha, the only possession of a small, recently orphaned, Chinese boy called Wei Lin, who arrived in Honk Kong with a group of refugees escaping the Chinese civil war that Mao's Communists are winning. Jeff cold-heartedly does his job only to end up being stuck with the kid, who sees him as a surrogate father and refuses to let go of him. When Jeff meets a pretty school teacher and daughter of a missionary, Julie McQuade, his tough shell begins to break as he grows fond of both her and the kid and realizes he must help them escape the city while there's still time. However, his non-sentimental employees double cross him and Jeff must use all his skills and wits to survive this adventure.