Plot

With only two of his colleagues, Captain of Detectives Tom Randolph and Lieutenant Barry Frohm with Central Division, in the know about what he is doing but neither agreeing with the move, Police Inspector Frank Kyler secretly hires Mannix under cloak and dagger to deal with an internal police matter. What Mannix knows from the news is that a man named Myles Stroud was murdered in a drive by shooting, but what the media did and does not know is that Stroud was an undercover police officer. In that undercover operation, he struck up a romantic relationship with a woman named Mavis Miller, who has since jumped bail. Stroud was working on a tip that an unknown number of cops were on the take, Miller handling the payoffs for the police. With Stroud and Miller now known to the crooked cops, Miller is as good as dead wherever she is in she not able to run forever. With Kyler having evidence that she is holed up in a rooming house a few hundred miles away, the location only known by Kyler, Mannix is tasked with finding her and bringing her back to provide testimony on the crooked cops. One other person external to the police that is interested is bail bondsman Monty Kelbo in he having lost his $10,000 unless Mavis is found. Mannix discovers in finding an uncooperative Mavis that the hole within the police department is probably bigger than Kyler suspects in people in wait wanting to kill Mannix and Mavis. Mannix is thus tasked with trying to discover who the holes in the police department are in addition to getting Mavis back safely.—Huggo