- IMF must find a rogue scientist, who has threatened to set off a bomb unless certain members of Congress step down and foreign policy is changed.
- Rogue physicist Dr. Jerome Cooper informs the government that he has planted a 50-megaton bomb in a major American city, which he will detonate unless various members of Congress are replaced and American foreign policy changed to suit his wishes. With less than a day to locate the bomb, the IMF attempts to isolate Dr. Cooper in a rural area, hoping to convince him that the government is acceding to his demands in time to get him to reveal the location of the bomb.—aldanoli
- Dr. Jerome Cooper, a brilliant but unbalanced nuclear scientist, whom evidently has grown weary of the "decay" of this nation and it's "path towards destruction" and, tired of waiting for "change to occur on its own", goes into and then under, the City Hall building in LA to the sewage duct. There, he opens a sewer access port to reveal an oil-drum sized thermonuclear bomb which he has built and placed there. Dr. Cooper then removes, from a bag he is carrying, a multi-turn potentiometer that arms the bomb and makes it "tamper-proof", installs a timing device, and sets the timer for 3 days till detonation. Then he exits City Hall to where his wife is waiting in his car. She hands him a letter, addressed to the US president.
In this letter, which Dr. Cooper insists is NOT "crank letter or a hoax", Dr. Cooper describes his 50 megaton "nuclear fusion device" (hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb), how he and his colleagues have taken " firm and decisive action" to "turn this nation from its corrupt ways" by planting the bomb in the heart of some "American city" and that it would be detonated at noon the next day taking millions of lives unless the President agrees to Cooper's "demands" to "turn this nation from it's path of corruption" by "placing under arrest" 3 Senators and eight Congressmen (one of the eight is a Congresswoman), which he lists and names in the letter and he and his cohorts consider "treasonous and corrupt", several cabinet members, which he considers corrupt also, be "seized and held", and for an "immediate and permanent change" to "US foreign policy", in that he demands that our troops be recalled from the "foreign entanglements that have weakened this nation for a generation". Once he has his demands met, and a written assurance from the President, Dr. Cooper or one of his cohorts will disarm the bomb. Dr. Cooper mails this letter.
---(Note--NONE of this information about the letter, which is read by Phelps when he gets the mission, was available to be read on screen--until the DVD of this episode was released--now that it is available--the letter can be read in full, thanks to the "magic of DVD". )
The next day--the IMF is called in and their mission is to find the bomb and disarm it or somehow "convince" Dr. Cooper to do it himself. It is quickly decided that Dr. Cooper would likely NOT "give in" on his own easily and so a Sting operation is concocted to force his hand. On the way to meet the President, whom has agreed to meet Cooper at the western White House, Dr. Cooper has car trouble (the car having been rigged and bugged by Barney the night before) and stops at a garage and cafe, which is probably about 30 miles from City Hall, to get his car repaired. The mechanic (Willy) agrees to "fix" Dr. Cooper's car, but, as Dr. Cooper is waiting, "Tom" the mechanic is suddenly "taken hostage" by a pair of "crooks" (Phelps and Mimi) who bully Dr. Cooper and prevent him for making a phone call to his cohorts. The "pair of robbers" have some "time to kill", while waiting for their "pickup", by a friend. Dr. Cooper however is growing inpatient as the bomb is set to blow at noon and it is now after 10 AM. He tries to convince Phelps to allow him a phone call but is forcibly stopped. A radio playing in the Cafe announces (having been rigged to play an IMF programmed message), a "meeting between the President and a number of Congress members", and Dr. Cooper is now sure his demands are being met. Soon, a cop enters and announces that they are looking for Dr. Cooper (who has been taken in the back out of sight.). After the cop leaves the robbers then "realize" that Dr. Cooper is indeed an "important man" as he told them and allow him to make his call where he phones a business man and simply says "it's all right." Needless to say, the call is monitored by the IMF who traces the call's location and have the police place the business man, Fredrick Rodgers, under surveillance . From here, Rodgers leaves his office with electronic schematics in hand to disarm the bomb. The plan obviously is for the bombs location to be revealed and then disarmed by Rodgers. Once that occurred, the conspirators, including Cooper, would be arrested and the bomb secured. As he is leaving his office, however, Rodgers is shot dead. The IMF team now realize that someone has killed him, and the still-armed bomb is obviously right there in LA. Barney then has a crew attempt to find the bomb by using detection instruments but time is quickly running out. So, it is announced on the radio that Rodgers was killed as he was leaving his office in hopes that Cooper will hear of the shooting and disarm the bomb himself. Dr. Cooper hears this and realizes that his bomb is STILL counting down for detonation, now only about an hour away!! If his 50MT hydrogen bomb does blow, ALL of L.A., INCLUDING the suburbs and all of them at the cafe, will go with it!!
Dr. Cooper then makes a deal with Phelps and Mimi, describing the hidden bomb and how, if they will take him to the bomb to disarm it temporarily, he will make sure they are rewarded in a huge financial way. With only about 30 minutes to spare, "Richie" (Barney) arrives with a helicopter to take all of them to LA to disarm the bomb. However, as they begin to leave the cafe, shots are fired at Cooper and the others. Dr. Cooper's wife, aware of the double cross by the IMF, has sent a hit man to kill Cooper (per HIS own orders, "If anything happens to me make SURE the bomb DOES go off", he had told her earlier before setting off for his meeting.) Dr. Cooper muses to himself that, in about 30 minutes, none of this will matter as all of them, and their money, will go up in a puff of smoke. Realizing that something is wrong, and very short of time, "Tom" makes an escape attempt out the back door and is "shot" by Phelps (this is, of course, a ploy by Willy to allow him to take out the shooter). JUST as the shooter is zeroed in on Phelps, Willy takes him out and Barney then lands and they all head to City Hall to disarm the bomb. With tension-building music in the background and about five minutes to spare, they all arrive on the roof of City Hall and head down to the basement, the sewers and to the bomb. The bomb's timer is shown in reverse-image behind the main scene to allow the viewer to see the countdown of the final minutes as Cooper and the rest descend to the sewer area. As they get there, shots again ring out at Cooper as he is about to defuse the bomb. Phelps shoots the shooter who is Dr. Cooper's wife (unknown to him) and Mimi runs over to her to control her while Phelps and Cooper defuse the bomb, a complicated process of dialing in the correct numbers on the potentiometer dial, which disarms the bomb and it's fail-safe mechanism, removing the potentiometer, and then removing the timing mechanism with five seconds to spare. As he then claims to be "triumphant in conquering the world", Dr. Cooper's wife is brought over by Mimi and a number of police who then arrest Cooper and take him away.
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