***SPOILERS*** Mike Hammer gets involved in government, both the USA & USSR, espionage when this clueless man known as John Doe, Tommy Dow, shows up at his office wanting him to find out just who he is where he's from or if he's wanted by the police. Hammer who's on the verge of being evicted from his office in being among other things behind in his rent takes on the case even though Mr. Doe doesn't have as much as a cent to pay him for his services! Hammer soon find out that Mr. Doe is really the US top space scientist Robert Miller who just escaped KGB custody who kidnapped him and were about to ship him back to the USSR.
Hammer getting in touch with US Government Secret Agent Ted Sharpe, Bo Hopkins, is told to stay out of this and let him and his boys take care of things involving US Government security. As Hammer soon finds out Sharpe is playing both sides of the coin in really helping the KGB kidnap Miller but at the same time making like he isn't! This has Hammer, who refused to not get involved, get kidnapped by the KGB lead by their boss Agent code name "Red October" Natagha Karinsky, Malgosia Keach, and is almost later killed at a KGB safe-house by a time bomb attached to a drain pipe that he's handcuffed to.
***SPOILERS*** Hammer later learns that Miller wasn't the top US space scientist that he was made out or cracked up to be but a delusional crackpot that the US Government wanted to pawn off or plant into the USSR's space program that in the end would destroy not help it as well as destroy the USSR itself! And sure enough, if you believe what this Mike Hammer episode is telling you, as history showed that less then five years later in 1991 that's exactly what happened!
Hammer getting in touch with US Government Secret Agent Ted Sharpe, Bo Hopkins, is told to stay out of this and let him and his boys take care of things involving US Government security. As Hammer soon finds out Sharpe is playing both sides of the coin in really helping the KGB kidnap Miller but at the same time making like he isn't! This has Hammer, who refused to not get involved, get kidnapped by the KGB lead by their boss Agent code name "Red October" Natagha Karinsky, Malgosia Keach, and is almost later killed at a KGB safe-house by a time bomb attached to a drain pipe that he's handcuffed to.
***SPOILERS*** Hammer later learns that Miller wasn't the top US space scientist that he was made out or cracked up to be but a delusional crackpot that the US Government wanted to pawn off or plant into the USSR's space program that in the end would destroy not help it as well as destroy the USSR itself! And sure enough, if you believe what this Mike Hammer episode is telling you, as history showed that less then five years later in 1991 that's exactly what happened!