Time Bomb - Recap

Jim picks up his briefing at a park and is informed that Anton Malek, a spy working undercover in the Federated People’s Republic, has discovered he has an incurable disease. He plans to go out with a bang, planting a nuclear bomb at the reactor where he works as a military officer. The explosion will set off a nuclear war between the FPR and the West. If the IMF does anything to reveal his presence, Malek will detonate the bomb prematurely but he will detonate it at 4 p.m. the next day regardless.

Jim assembles the usual team along with Wai Lee, as well as the Globe Repertory Company. They have a glass window prepared and Barney has created a duplicate of the bomb that Malek is using, but notes that it has an elaborate set of pins and that any attempt to remove them in the incorrect order will set off the bomb. They also have a drug ready that will cause blackouts when Malek takes it, and scheduled a jet plane to fly overhead at 10 a.m.

The IMF goes to the FPR where Barney and Willy reroute the military escort with the stained glass window being delivered to the nuclear reactor on the orders of the premier. Jim and the others intercept the redirected escort, capture them, and take their place. Jim disguises himself as the artist and he and Willy take the glass window to the reactor. Malek meets with his superior, General Brenner, who is aware of Malek’s illness but is keeping it a secret from his superiors as a favor to a treasured underling. Barney slips out of a secret compartment in the window’s dolly and goes to the basement where he plants a device beneath the window. Brenner sends a security guard to check the basement but Jim calls him back by noting the jet is due to fly overhead. Barney remote-destroys the window and Jim flies into a fury, blaming Brenner. Brenner is unhappy since the premier will blame him as well.

Meanwhile, Paris goes to the deputy premier’s office for a meeting when they know the man will be out. Wai Lee plays a pre-recorded conversation getting the assistant out of the office, and then Paris intercepts a call that Jim makes to ask that his model, Wai Lee, be allowed to come to the reactor building so he can replace the pane featuring her. Impersonating the deputy premier on the phone, Paris agrees to send her and arranges that he be there as a major inspecting the facility as well.

After evading the guard in the basement, Barney sabotages the walls of the reactor then puts on a suit and goes back to the hidden compartment upstairs. Paris and Wai Lee arrive and she “senses” something wrong with Malek. Paris insists on a tour of the facility and in the medical lab substitutes the IMF drug for Malek’s regular dosage. It’s 2:10 p.m. and Malek prepares to leave for treatment in Switzerland and so that he isn’t there when the bomb goes off in two hours. Before he goes he gets his drug treatment and Wai Lee confronts him, saying she can “sense” he’s ill. He collapses and is taken to the medical lab where Wai Lee gives him organic medicine as part of her faith healing and it seems to help. She reveals she has been treating the premier secretly and after Paris hushes it up, Brenner is informed the reactor walls are cracking. Paris calls in Barney as an engineer to deal with the situation.

Willy and Jim take Barney out, and then he returns as the engineer and orders an evacuation. They take Malek out for further treatment… then deliver him to the warehouse where the repertory company has set up a fake nuclear reactor facility. They wake up Malek who discovers that the (fake) reactor had an accident and Brenner has been removed. Wai Lee is there and insists that she can cure him completely given a little more time. Deciding he wants to live, Malek goes to the (fake) reactor room and starts to deactivate the bomb using the remote manipulator arms.

Barney has isolated himself in the real reactor room and Jim is monitoring Malek by hidden camera and relaying his movements to his teammate. Malek removes the first four of the six pins, but then seems to notice something off. Barney mentions there’s a scratch on the real bomb clockface and Jim figures Malek has caught on. When Malek removes the fifth pin and then the sixth, Jim tells Barney to remove them in the reverse order. Barney successfully defuses the bomb with seconds to spare and Jim has the wall of the fake reactor room removed to reveal the whole thing to Malek. Paris and Barney leave the facility, meet with the team, and they depart leaving Malek tied up for the authorities.

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