Hong Kong treasure hunter Jackie aka
Asian Hawk, is summoned by Duke Scapio. At Duke's mansion in
Madrid,
Spain, Jackie is told of a story of German commander Hans von Ketterling and his regiment burying 240 tons of gold at a secret base in Africa's
Sahara Desert before the end of
World War II. The 18 soldiers involved in the operation disappeared under mysterious circumstances. By request from the
United Nations, Scapio gives Jackie an unofficial mission to locate the base and recover the gold. Aside from acquiring the key to the base, he is partnered with Ada, an expert in African geography. Upon discovery of the gold, Jackie is promised one percent of the treasure, or roughly 2.5 tons of gold. One night, while snooping around the home of one of the base's caretakers, Jackie meets Elsa, a young German woman, after saving her from two
Arab men—Amon and Tasza—who also search for the gold. The next day, he goes to a renowned locksmith and learns that the key is intricately designed for use with a special code. After evading an army of black cars chasing him across town, Jackie is asked by Elsa to let her join his expedition, as she is in search of von Ketterling, who was her grandfather. Arriving in the Sahara Desert, the expedition team picks up Momoko, a Japanese woman who is searching for the meaning of death. Their camp is attacked by black-veiled bandits who kidnap Elsa and Ada. Jackie and Momoko follow the bandits' trail to a slave market, where they save Elsa and Ada from being auctioned off as sex slaves. Meanwhile, the rest of the expedition team is murdered by a group of mercenaries led by a man who uses a wheelchair. After another run-in with Amon and Tasza, Jackie's group returns to their camp to discover their comrades slain, but Momoko recognizes a statue in one of Elsa's grandfather's pictures and leads them to an ancient temple. After bidding Momoko farewell, the trio enters the ruins, where they encounter a band of vicious tribesmen. While running for their lives, they fall through a loose floor of sand into a cavern, which is part of the secret Nazi base. They discover the mummified remains of Elsa's grandfather and look through his log book, revealing that the 18 soldiers under von Ketterling ingested cyanide pills and died inside the base upon completion of their mission. However, the trio only counts 17 bodies, with one soldier missing. The man who uses the wheelchair—arriving with his mercenaries and holding Momoko hostage—reveals himself as Adolf, the 18th soldier who murdered Elsa's grandfather after the latter made him a paraplegic for refusing to ingest the cyanide. A furious chase ensues between Jackie's group and the mercenaries throughout the base, which ends with the protagonists getting captured. Upon arriving at the vault, Jackie uses the key and a secret code from Elsa's grandfather's dog tag and opens it, revealing the elevator leading to the gold. Upon their discovery of the gold, the mercenaries turn their backs on Adolf with the intent of keeping the treasure to themselves. Adolf in turn locks in all of the mercenaries, except for two who chase Jackie to an underground
wind tunnel. While Jackie battles the two mercenaries, Elsa and Ada flip random switches in the control room, activating the tunnel's turbine fan. As the three men hang on for their lives, Elsa and Ada attempt to switch off the fan, but they accidentally trigger the base's self-destruct sequence. Adolf tells the quartet that they can escape by having the turbine blow them through the ventilation duct, but he decides to stay to atone for his sins. The quartet gathers as much gold as they can, but the wind force only sends their bodies upward to the desert surface above before the base completely caves in. As the quartet walks across the desert, they once again encounter Amon and Tasza. With their common lack of a water supply, they finally overcome their differences and try to find water in the Sahara desert. ==Cast==