- A traitor is willing to sell secrets about the nuclear defense network that would make America vulnerable to nuclear attack. The IMF has to trick him into revealing where the microfilm is hidden before it falls into enemy hands.
- Defense Department analyst Whitmore Channing has stolen microfilm detailing temporary blind spots in the nation's Defense Early Warning system. The information will be picked up from an unknown dead drop in less than 24 hours. In order to locate the drop, the IMF convinces Channing that the enemy attack has already begun. But, they don't know about an assassin being sent to kill the spy before he can talk.—EEM
- Whitmore Channing (Kevin McCarthy), analyst with the US Department of Defense, is a traitor and a murderer. He has stolen several documents showing where a recent series of earthquakes along the Ring of Fire have opened holes in the Distant Early Warning (DEW) line, and almost casually killed a Pentagon officer to get them out. He has left microfilms of the documents at a dead drop, known only as "Drop B."
Unknown to him, he is now a double target. First, two operatives (possibly FBI, though this is never made clear) have recorded his last conversation and reported it up the chain. Naturally this information finds its way to The Secretary (Bob Johnson), who records it in a self-destructing message for Jim Phelps (Peter Graves), team leader of the Impossible Missions Force. The mission: get those documents back, and fast!
And second, the intelligence service of the European People's Republic has decided that, instead of evacuating and paying off Channing, they will simply send someone to kill him.
The IMF ambush Channing in his apartment, as he is packing a suitcase to fly out of the country. They rig a stovetop dial to deliver a strong electric shock, and then shoot him with a dart gun charged with a knock-out drug. They then run out the twelve-hour reel-to-reel tape he had set up on his tape deck, run down the weight and stop the pendulum on his wall-mounted pendulum clock (setting the time to seem to have run out at 12:15 a.m.), and install small tape recorders to play back convincing messages on his telephone, his radio, and his TV set.
So that when Channing wakes up, he sees that (apparently) the coffee water has steamed a scorch in the ceiling, his twelve-hour tape is spinning in its take-up reel, and his pendulum clock ran down (apparently) at 12:15 a.m. he tries to place a call--and gets the "do, sol, ti" tones, and then a message saying that telephone service is suspended in the national emergency. He turns on the radio, and hears the voice of Barney Collier (Greg Morris) saying that martial law is in effect, and the radio station will suspend broadcasting. He turns on the TV and sees a desperate-looking newscaster talking about missile strikes, and finally an announcement that the President will address a joint session of Congress and capitulate to the European People's Republic.
Channing tries to finish packing, when he hears a knock on his door. He answers, to find two men wearing the uniform of the EPR. In fact, the officer in the lead is Willy Armitage (Peter Lupus), wearing captain's bars. Willy tells Channing that the day is Thursday, or one day later. Channing at first tries to boast of his role in bringing about the invasion, but Willy tells him that he is on a list of people to round up, and that's all Willy "knows."
What neither man can see is a hired killer lining up a "bead" with his high-powered rifle. The only reason he could not shoot is that Willy's van drove up before he could see clearly into Channing's apartment. What the hit man makes of the EPR logo on the side of the van, the script does not make clear.
Channing rides in a sealed van, hearing sounds of soldiers marching and tanks and other heavy vehicles running. In fact, this is a tape that Willy plays through the van's PA horns, which he has reversed for the trip. Channing is totally unaware of any masquerade, and finds himself placed in a detention room, together with an apparently wounded man on a stretcher, a US Air Force major (Barney), a frightened secretary (Lisa Casey, played by Lynda Day George), and a few other detainees.
Channing watches and listens as a military tribunal, run by an unemotional colonel (actually Jim), summons "Major" Barney, then Casey. The colonel runs a very no-nonsense court, and the verdict is always the same: "You are an Enemy of the People." The sentence: death by firing squad, carried out in a courtyard that Channing can also see through a window.
Now the "court" summons Channing, who at once starts to protest that the court is overreaching. "Judge" Jim protests ignorance of Channing's name, and then says that he is an intelligence officer on detached duty, and would have known him if he were a genuine defector. Channing blurts out, "Of course you don't know me, because I've been operating under a code name!" He gives that code name, and the "judge" says, "Bring him back."
Channing boasts to the "judge" that he gave away the documents that let the attack go forward (and killed an Air Force general to get them, too). He didn't get out because he suffered a severe electric shock and lay unconscious overnight. He refuses to give the location of any of the six dead drops, but says only that he used Drop B.
Then the "judge" asks for a phone, and makes a call. He says, "The suspect says, 'Drop B.' Is that satisfactory?" Channing asks whether the "judge" already knew about Drop B, and the "judge" says only, "You have told us all we needed to know."
The guards toss Channing back into the detention room--which now is empty. Then he hears machine-gun fire, and looks out in the courtyard. No firing squad--and no blanket-wrapped bodies, either. So now he rushes into the now-empty courtroom and plays the tape of the proceedings in his "case." Satisfied that he in fact revealed nothing that would compromise the operation, he picks up the phone--which works. (Or so he thinks.) He will call the airline that the pickup man is flying in on and tell him to abort the drop. He dials the number of Polar Air Lines. As he thinks, an operator answers. (It is actually Casey, who had before her a list of the most likely airlines and was prepared to pose as an employee of any of them.) Channing gives a flight number and the code name of the next operative up the chain.
Then a bullet creases his left shoulder. Another bullet flies over his head. The "judge" rushes in, saying, "Your 'control' had a trigger on you, didn't he, Channing?" Channing refuses to say anymore, and accuses the "judge" of staging the attempted hit on him. The "judge" says, "That wasn't part of our plan." Whether this makes any impression on Channing, the story leaves to the viewer's imagination.
The action now switches to Los Angeles International Airport, where Willy, dressed as a Polar Air Lines employee, relieves the regular employee at the Polar message-page counter and waits for the first man to step up, saying, "Have you a message for Theo Six?" Willy pleads a mispronunciation, but now he has "made" the operative. All the IMF now has to do is follow the operative and his companion to the Los Angeles docks, where they shoot it out with and capture both men, find the microfilm, and burn it. Score one for the IMF: mission accomplished, World War Three averted, two enemy spies in custody, and a traitor sent for trial, with information that will surely suffice to convict him.
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