- Regan adopts a new identity as an ex-con and goes undercover as a truck driver to expose a hijacking ring.
- Several lorries have been targeted by a gang of hi-jackers and Regan goes under cover, working as a lorry driver, in order to find out more information. Unfortunately he too gets robbed, bringing him into conflict with Haskins over the best way to run the operation.—don @ minifie-1
- Jack Regan is working undercover, posing as truck driver in order to uncover a cargo-hijacking gang. He appears to be onto something when a young woman befriends him. He is soon approached to allow his cargo to be stolen. This could be his opportunity to infiltrate the gang.—grantss
- Regan (John Thaw, Sweeney 2 (1978)) goes undercover trying to get a lead on a ring of lorry hijackers. While posing as a lorry driver on the take, he encounters an attractive but scruffy hitchhiker, Fran (Susan Tracy). Carter (Dennis Waterman, Minder (1979)) traces Fran, discovering that she has another, much classier persona, with upscale flat and sportscar to match; seizing his opportunity, Carter details a junior Squad member to stand guard in a nearby phonebox, to signal Fran's return by calling her phone number "for three rings" -- very much the pre-cellphone era -- then cheerily breaks into her flat without benefit of a warrant.
While Carter's searching, his colleague is distracted by the persistent efforts of a little old lady (Mollie Maureen) to use the phone, and fails to notice another gang member has arrived. The gang member, who holds mid-level rank in the gang, lets himself into Fran's flat with his key. Despite Carter's attempt to sneak out of the flat while the gang member handles a sudden phonecall from Fran, he is discovered, and a fight ensues. Carter knocks out his opponent, but not before the heavy gets enough of a look at him to identify him later.
Regan then makes progress worming his way into the hijacking gang, with the encouragement and plentiful charms of Fran making themselves known. Fran -- who turns out to be the boss's moll, and who has clearly been leading a charmed life by secretly sharing her favors with a mere employee -- is also increasingly taken with Regan's undercover persona; things soon get steamy enough that she gives Regan a key to her flat, as well.
Regan agrees at the gang boss's urging to drive his truckload of "gearboxes up, sweets down" off the road when signaled. In return for "six long ones" (600 Pounds), he is to turn over the lorry's keys.
However, when Regan arrives at the handoff location, the boss is in no mood to pay Regan's price upfront, and orders his operatives to take the keys from Regan by force.
Regan is not keen on this, and resists his four simultaneous attackers quite effectively, earning the enmity of two of the heavies -- including the same gang member who earlier encountered Carter at Fran's flat. After a brief stalemate, the gang boss accepts Regan's price, but then has his crew dish out a beating Regan can't avoid, to allay suspicion of Regan's complicity after the hijacking comes to the attention of the police.
However, Regan's fighting prowess has earned him the respect of the gang boss, who later recruits Regan, and even appoints him as his personal driver - thus earning the jealousy of the other aggrieved gangsters, on top of their prior frustrations.
Regan then has to do some very fancy footwork to keep a meeting with Carter from spoiling the whole undercover operation.
In the denouement, Fran's duplicity is dramatically revealed, and the episode piles on all the elements of a classically "Sweeney" resolution: gritty action, colorful language, and the violent comeuppance of the villains.
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