Convicted safe-cracker Duke Anderson (Sean Connery) is released after serving ten years in prison. Upon visiting his old girlfriend, Ingrid Everleigh (Dyan Cannon), at her upscale apartment in New York City, Anderson comes up with his next get rich scheme: rob all six apartments in the building. It will be a complex scheme, with numerous ex-con friends and acquaintances part of the plot. Anderson realizes that life has changed in the ten years he has been in prison, where surveillance cameras are now part of everyday life. The cameras are just one more aspect that he has to consider in the scheme. What he doesn't realize is that some of his associates are also under individual electronic surveillance by various organizations, each for a different reason. Some of these taps are legal and some not so legal. Will anyone doing the surveillance work be able to piece together the plot, and even if they do will they care if it does not relate to their prime subject?