Operation "Heart" - Recap

Jim enters a photo booth and picks up a briefing tape on Professor William Bennett, an archaeologist. Bennet has been captured by Stephan Gomalk, the chief of security police who plans to overthrow the pro-Western government of his close friend Beyron Rurich. Gomalk plans to assassinate Rurich and believes Bennett is an enemy agent who knows the plan, codename “Anniversary.” Bennett has a weak heart and is being held in a hospital maximum security ward.

Jim assembles the usual team plus Dr. Owen Siebert, who goes over Bennett’s medical records. Siebert suggests they freeze him so they can move him out of the hospital to the plane. Cinnamon then practices a routine with a handkerchief, switching it for another one. Cinnamon will be passing herself off as Bennett’s husband. Siebert finally brings out digitalis pills… including one that will kill Bennett.

Gomalk is using drugs to interrogate the ailing Bennett and is finally convinced he knows nothing… then leaves him to die. Jim poses as a reporter and meets with President Rurich. He dismisses Jim’s suggestion that Gomalk is plotting against him. They go outside and Barney opens fire with a sniper rifle, wounding Jim. Barney escapes with Willy and Jim is taken to the hospital.

Cinnamon arrives at the hospital with Siebert to see her husband, while Rollin is brought in a cantankerous patient. Gomalk is there and expresses his concern. Barney and Willy are working on medical equipment at a warehouse. Jim gets his wounds tended to and suggests the assassin was an expert. Cinnamon asks Rurich to her see Bennett and he agrees, while Gomalk is furious that someone else tried to assassinate Rurich, messing up his plan to do so.

Siebert suggests heart surgery for Bennett but Gomalk refuses, and Cinnamon insists he be taken to the States then goes in to see her “husband.” She gives him the special pill but the doctor catches her and she isn’t able to administer it. She then asks to get her husband’s personal items at police headquarters, while the doctor shows the pill to Gomalk who orders it tested.

Barney and Willy continue their work while Rollin prepares to disguise himself. Jim meets with Rurich again and casually mentions that Bennett is an American agent. At police headquarters, Cinnamon asks for Bennett’s things and makes the switch of the handkerchief. However Gomalk has found out her pill is a stimulant that would kill Bennett and orders her arrest.

Rollin slips out of his room disguised as an orderly and goes into the operating room where he rigs the heart monitor with a remote control. Gomalk interrogates Cinnamon and finds a hidden message on the handkerchief promising arms for a revolution and mentions “Anniversary.” Cinnamon must now try and convince Gomalk that Bennett actually is an agent.

Willy arrives at the hospital with gas tanks, including the ones eh and Barney rigged. Jim and Rurich arrive at headquarters and finds him slapping Cinnamon around. Rurich sees the handkerchief and believes Bennett might be a spy, so orders the operation so they can interrogate him. Rollin takes the rigged tanks, which are magnetized, to the operating room.

Gomalk wants to make sure the operation is successful so Rurich can interrogate Bennett and realize there’s no plan… so his own plan can go ahead. Bennett is taken to the operating room and in the middle of surgery Rollin barges in to claim the gas tanks are wrong and reveals one has a timing device. They can’t move it because of the magnets so they call bomb disposal: Barney and Siebert, who arrive in a van with Willy. They bring in their bomb disposal equipment and work on the bomb while the operation continues. Gomalk orders the doctor to take Bennett back to his room but Rollin simulates heart fibrillations with the remote. Rurich arrives and concludes some kind of plot is involved, and orders an evacuation of the hospital.

Once Gomalk and Rurich go outside, the IMF draw guns and disconnect Bennett, using the heart-lung machine to cryogenically stabilize him. However, Rollin uses the remote to make it appear that Bennett is dying, and then they lock the doctors up. Barney, Willy, and Siebert bring out the supposed bomb on a card, covered with a reinforced blank, but Gomalk insists on seeing it. There’s nothing but a bomb and they take it away… and reveals Bennett is in a hidden compartment.

Rurich, Jim and Gomalk go to the operating theater and let the doctors out. Bennett is dying, but opens his eyes and asks Gomalk if the assassination plan went ahead as planned. Rurich draws a gun on Gomalk and orders everyone else out, then shoots the hapless Gomalk. Once he lives, Bennett unmasks to reveal… Rollin. Rurich asks Jim to cover up Gomalk’s death and orders Cinnamon released. Jim catches a taxi and offers a ride to the once-again-elderly disguised Rollin as they depart.

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