Joseph Collins, a nuclear physicist, steals plutonium and is going to sell it to a unidentified foreign interest through a man named Haig. The IMF must identify Haig and locate the plutonium, so they feed Collins fake news story about military action in the Middle East, then arrest him for murder and show him film of Los Angeles under attack before knocking him out. When he wakes up, for Collins its the year 2000, he's been unconscious for 28 years, and the state exterminates anyone at the age of 65...which Collins will be in two days. Desperate, he escapes from his cell and finds a secret meeting of military heads who are ready to surrender beacuse of their lack of nuclear material - Collins obligingly gives them the location of his cache.

Collins, un physicien spécialisé dans le nucléaire, a caché assez de plutonium pour construire une douzaine de bombes atomiques. Pour récupérer le métal radioactif, l'équipe de Mission Impossible persuade le scientifique qu'il vit en l'an 2000 et que la Terre vient d'être ravagée par 28 ans de guerre nucléaire.