Edge of Darkness (1985): Season 1, Episode 6 - Fusion - full transcript
Where's the plutonium?
With Jedburgh.
Where's Jedburgh?
I don't know.
What happened?
We found the hot cell.
And?
Where am I?
You're in an American Air Force hospital.
I feel sick.
Radiation, Craven.
Nausea's the first of its symptoms.
- Has bad is it?
- It's bad.
It's important, old chap,
that you tell me everything you know.
They found the hot cell.
It had been sealed off.
Apparently, there had been some sort of
explosion, resulting in massive radiation.
Anyway, Jedburgh went in
and located the plutonium
and carried it out in a Harrods bag.
Has Craven got any idea
where Jedburgh went?
He says his last words were something
about "meeting Moriarty at the falls".
If there's an Irish component
to this, I shall retire.
They all drowned.
Dad.
Em.
- What's that?
- A present.
- It's black.
- It's an arctic flower.
They all drowned.
I know. I was there.
Why didn't you tell me?
Dad, you were on their side.
No!
- I'm Neilson.
- Nallers.
What happened?
There's been a shoot-out.
Jedburgh and three of my men.
- Where's Jedburgh?
- He got away.
What about the plutonium?
He took it with him.
Sir!
- We've found another one!
- Four of my men...
- What about the police?
- I haven't called them yet.
- Well done, Jemima!
- This girl's no slouch.
Right, Morag. I'll go with the
four. Put the pressure on, OK?
You're in with a chance, my dear.
- What do you think, Pete?
- Six inches on the right.
- Piece of cake.
- Should be.
- Bloody good shot.
- Well done, Darius.
Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig.
Are you all right, old sport?
- Yeah, I'm fine.
- You're not looking too good.
I think that old lady in there
is trying to poison me.
I'll see you later.
Mr Jedborough.
You forgot your sandwich
again today, Mr Jedborough.
Mrs Girvan,
mince between two slices
of white bread is not my idea of lunch.
I'd rather eat the damned Bible.
Mr Jedborough!
Jedburgh.
Hernandez? Cómo estas? Darius Jedburgh.
Yeah... You recuerda me.
Look, I'm the hombre who put the bomb
in your bus about a year or so ago.
Yeah, that's right. High Command.
Yeah. Yeah. The gringo from Texas.
Hey, listen, Hernandez.
I'm taking a vacation in Scotland...
It's in Great Britain.
Yeah, Kilmichael.
Kill as in muerte - you know,
death, murder.
Michael as in St Michael,
the patron saint of the CIA.
I know he's your patron saint.
Haven't you wised up yet?
Every time you pray to
him he tells the agency.
- Harcourt?
- It's clementine. I'm with craven.
- What made him skip?
- He saw a lead coffin.
It had his name on it.
At least he knows his days are numbered.
Yes. Yes, he does.
That's why he wants to find Jedburgh. He
wants a guarantee that he won't be hassled.
- And he'll get back the plutonium?
- Yes, he feels that's his responsibility.
Tell him to try Scotland. Grogan's there.
He's at a conference at the Gleneagles Hotel.
- This business at Northmoor.
- Yes.
The minister wants to know
whether you sanctioned the operation.
Well, in a roundabout way, yes.
- Darius Jedburgh.
- Hello, Taffy.
- How they hanging?
- Never better.
This is Carlo Barlotti.
Brookings Institute.
- Hello, Colonel.
- Pleased to meet you.
- Is Jerry Grogan coming?
- No. He'll be late. Business in London.
- How many bodies?
- Four, Minister.
- And three at the plant makes seven.
- How long can this go on for?
- Until he's caught.
- Do you think he's mad?
Well, he wasn't before,
but he certainly is now.
Now, this is the report on IIF?
It's a copy. We sent the original
to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
- Why?
- It proves that there is a hot cell at Northmoor,
built in contravention of IAEA safeguards.
It was never under IAEA safeguards.
The contamination
in the reservoir can now be traced to it.
They are liable to prosecution under
the Radioactive Substances Act of 1960.
Is this really within your brief, Harcourt?
Northmoor was producing plutonium illegally,
contrary to the Nuclear Installations Act of 1968,
the NPT and every other
international agreement.
They are breaking every law
in the nuclear rule book.
Northmoor was producing very small quantities
of plutonium by a secret laser process,
which was classified as experimental.
I knew about it,
and so did some colleagues.
- You knew about it?!
- From day one.
An experimental station with a defence component
is not subject to the restrictions you've quoted.
If you knew what caused the contamination,
why was I brought in to investigate it?
Because the Americans became suspicious.
- So I was purely part of a deception plan?
- Yes, if you like.
- You must have known that I'd find out.
- Yes, of course I did.
I just thought you might take longer,
that's all,
and have used less unorthodox methods of
breaching the mine than Craven and Jedburgh.
- I will not withdraw that report.
- That's up to the Cabinet.
But it's your duty to get the plutonium back,
since you were responsible for its removal.
How long have you got?
Three days like this,
and then it's rapidly
downhill... or so I'm told.
What are you going to do about it?
I haven't...
I don't know.
I'd like to find Jedburgh first, if I can.
- He still has the plutonium.
- I know.
You know, I'm very fond of you,
and if there's any way I can...
You've already been an enormous help.
You can't die alone, Ronnie.
Why not?
We all do, you know.
I left a report of my investigations
so far with my bank manager.
If you give him this,
he'll give the report to you.
It was going to the Chief Constable...
but now I'd rather Gaia have it.
Don't try and come after me.
Oh, excuse me.
Excuse me a second.
- Hi, Bobby.
- Hello, Darius. What the hell are you doing here?
Fulfilling a long-standing engagement.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second
NATO Conference on Directed Energy Weapons.
- Hello, Pendleton.
- This is Bennett.
- Who?
- Bennett.
I'm speaking from the Gleneagles Hotel
in Scotland. Jedburgh is here...
about to take part in a debate on the high
frontier. What are you going to do about it?
The question is, how high is high?
With the latest Star Wars technology,
are we on the edge of a new space race?
And what does that presage for the
future of that other race, the human race?
My sources in Washington sent me a
complete rundown of what's going on there.
If you believe Washington, you're naïve.
Bennett called. Jedburgh's
at Gleneagles... and he's not playing golf.
- Bobby, what's up?
- No time to talk. Go straight onto the platform.
- Where's Jedburgh?
- Inside.
Darius Jedburgh is an old friend.
For several years, before his posting to
London as an energy attaché at the US Embassy,
Colonel Jedburgh reported to the Director
of Scientific Intelligence at Langley.
He's also been a member of the Standing
Committee on Nuclear Materials Safeguards
and the International
Anti-Terrorism Committee.
Finally, I'm sure
that my last guest needs no introduction.
Our first nuclear entrepreneur, the President
of the Fusion Corporation of Kansas,
the Henry Ford of the Sunrise Industries,
ladies and gentlemen, Jerry C Grogan.
Hello, Darius.
Where's my plutonium?
And so, to open our debate tonight
on the future of space,
I call upon the President of the Fusion
Corporation Kansas, Jerry Grogan.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I must apologise for my late arrival.
However, I had to wait for confirmation
that my company's bid for International
Irradiated Fuels is to be allowed to stand.
It is.
The decision to allow the bid to proceed
from the Fusion corporation of Kansas
for International Irradiated Fuels,
the British private nuclear waste plant,
was greeted in the city
with cautious optimism.
Fusion, a contender for substantial contracts
for President Reagan's Star Wars programme,
will bring to IIF fresh capital
and a new sense of purpose.
There's still strong opposition
to the sale in some quarters.
At a NATO conference
at Gleneagles Hotel this morning...
When we unlock a chain reaction,
the energy in it was put there
in the first ten seconds
of the universe's existence.
That is an awesome thing. We are tapping
into the very source of God's creation.
Today we have access
to that power, but we do not control it,
and that is the sole purpose of my
corporation - to find a way to control it.
When we have done so, we can say, for the
first time in history, Man will be in charge.
That's enough, Dad.
What we're trying to do at the moment is
to take the plutonium bomb and explode it
in a vessel no larger
than the circumference of my arms,
and to control the energy in there.
By harnessing that energy, we can direct
it, as lasers, half way across the world
to shoot down enemy rockets in their silos.
That is the capability for which we are aiming.
It will cost us billions of dollars to get there,
but in the end, it'll be worth it.
You're getting angry again.
I'm dying.
Do you regret it?
- I feel so much is left undone.
- Other people will continue the job.
You'll be with me.
- I still don't understand.
- Dad, it's happened before, you know.
Millions of years ago,
when the Earth was cold,
it looked as if life
on our planet would cease to exist.
But black flowers began to grow,
multiplying across its face,
till the entire landscape
was covered in blooms.
Slowly, the black flowers sucked in the heat
of the sun, and life began to evolve again.
That is the power of Gaia.
It will take more
than a black flower to save us this time.
This time, when it comes, it will melt
the polar ice cap. Millions will die.
The planet will protect itself.
It's important to realise that.
- If Man is the enemy, it will destroy him.
- Is this a warning?
All I'm saying is don't spend
your last hours seeking revenge, Dad.
The planet will do it for us... in time.
I believe that fusion motors will power
the great spaceships of the 21st century,
which will leave the earth in their
hundreds to colonise the solar system.
That, ultimately,
is what the phrase "high frontier" means.
The historical expansion of Man into space,
with all the parallels
it evokes of the rigours and heroism
of America's 19th-century trek westward.
Like our forefathers,
we will be escaping poverty and tyranny,
and, as in the past,
war will provide the anvil upon which...
- The others?
- On their way.
I foresee, within the next 100 years,
the beginning of Man as an
interplanetary being, a celestial warrior.
And furthermore, a solar empire for the
United States of America and her allies.
Looking at our overpopulated,
over-exhausted planet,
I don't see how
we can turn our backs on such a future,
no matter what it costs
or how long it takes.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
$500,000 million for a defence system
for Washington DC seems a bit pricey to me,
but then, I don't live there...
- He has to be stopped.
- He's an accredited speaker.
The man is sick!
- He'll say things better left unsaid.
- That audience is 100% secure.
They can take anything
he can throw at them.
Jerry Grogan suggests
that in 100 years from now,
the human race
will leave the planet and move into space.
Jerry is a hell of a salesman. He can make
such an unappetising idea sound attractive.
Now, the way Jerry tells it, it sounds just
like an extension of the old Oregon Trail.
It calls for the same American virtues
of self-reliance, independence, know-how.
But it will not be that way.
This new international nuclear state that Jerry's
a part of, they do not cherish such virtues.
You got that straight from the horse's
mouth, because I used to be a part of it.
Read between the lines
of a Jerry Grogan speech,
you'll find not the frontiersman
but the Teutonic knight.
Not democracy but a despotism.
This future nuclear state
will be an absolute state
whose authority will derive not from the
people but from the possession of plutonium.
And to make sure
we all know what we're talking about,
I brought some with me today.
Two bars of weapons-grade plutonium.
I stole this stuff on orders,
straight out of Jerry's latest acquisition.
Twenty-four people
have died for this stuff, including me.
All I have to do is bring these bars
together and we'll have a criticality.
- Careful, Darius.
- 400 rads, ladies and gentlemen.
A lethal dose to anyone
within ten yards. Get it while it's hot!
Hey, don't y'all want to be part
of the new age of plutonium lunacy?
Don't you want to see mankind become enslaved
to this new priesthood of plutonium culture,
see the earth become a desert,
all its natural resources plundered to
build some new Jerusalem in the Milky Way?
- Why did you let him go?
- We had no alternative.
- None?
- He still has 20 kilos.
In an explosive configuration - his words.
- Is 20 kilos enough?
- To dispose of the east coast of Scotland... yes.
- If he wanted that, he'd have done it by now.
- Nobody was taking that chance.
Instead, a particularly sensitive
relationship between you and my government
is public property.
We could have had a catastrophe in there.
Colonel.
- What did he say about Northmoor?
- Not much.
The whole hall was in such a state
of pandemonium, I doubt if anyone noticed.
The man is quite insane.
He completely misread Jerry's argument.
Did he? I thought he put his finger
right on it. Either we stay or we go.
Go where?
- Well, then. What next? We have to find him.
- We should leave it to Craven.
- Bennett?
- There are alternatives.
There's a telephone call
from Inspector Craven for Mr Harcourt.
Any objection to leaving it to Craven?
As long as he finds the plutonium,
it's OK by me.
Well, Harcourt, you'd better make sure
that he's fully briefed... hadn't you?
He used to play here twice a week.
Said he felt at home.
- When did you see him last?
- Oh, a couple of days now.
He was a good loser,
which is just as well,
because we have a lot of strong players.
OK. That's fine. Thanks.
- Who's their man?
- Nallers.
He drinks at the Chelsea Barracks. He's,
um...
He's rumoured to be the state executioner.
Who would he be after here?
It could be you, old boy. The Minister didn't
take too kindly to that report of yours.
But it's more likely to be Jedburgh. Ah,
good.
Thank you.
I thought I ordered oatcake.
What took you so long?
- How have you been feeling?
- Sick.
Boy, have I ever been sick.
- Did you come alone?
- Yeah.
What the hell are you doing up here?
Mostly dying. I've bought the farm, boy.
You talk to Harcourt?
- Last night.
- He tell you I was at Gleneagles?
Yeah. You caused quite a stir.
- Yeah. Nothing on TV, though, I see.
- No. They've got that screwed down tight.
Yeah.
What about you?
- What about me?
- How long have you got?
Two weeks.
That's too bad.
- It was a hell of a mission though, huh?
- You didn't complete it.
Well, they were waiting for me with guns.
My own people started shooting at me.
Honour went out of the window
the day they invented that stuff.
Do you know what
Harcourt told me last night?
Grogan had reached the conclusion
that the enquiry would stop the takeover,
so he decided to get the
plutonium another way.
Then he thought of you. Who would
walk into a cave full of radiation?
You would, given the right scenario.
All he had to do was call Washington
to make sure they fed you the right orders.
They didn't just betray you...
they made a fool of you.
No shit, Sherlock.
You think I didn't figure that out?
- Where is the plutonium?
- It's in the bottom of a loch.
- What shape is it in?
- It's in pretty good shape. I packed it in chalk.
And as core,
I put a pound of plastic explosive.
- You turned it into a bomb?!
- Yeah.
- Why?
- 'Cause that's the problem with plutonium.
It's limited in its application.
It's not user-friendly, but as a vehicle
for regaining one's self-respect,
it's got a lot going for it.
Damned right I turned it into a bomb.
Is it armed? Fused?
There's a detonator,
if that's what you mean.
It's a plutonium bullet.
Would it work?
Well, fired from a high-velocity rifle...
it just might.
A nuclear explosion?
Hell of a way to go, huh?
- It seems rather hard on the rest of Scotland.
- Yeah, that's what I thought,
especially the golf courses,
So I decided against it.
What other ideas have
you had... to end it all?
Well, I called up this especially
humourless bastard called Hernandez.
He runs this rinky-dinky terrorist outfit.
I'm supposed to be on his death list,
so I invited him up. He hasn't showed.
- Where's the plutonium?
- Loch Lednock,
ten miles west of here, by the dam.
- Mind if I use the phone?
- You going to call Harcourt?
- Yes.
- He'll only turn it over to Grogan.
They'll screw you the
same way they screwed me.
I'll have to take that chance.
Craven?
They'll trace the call.
- They?
- The opposition.
They'll come looking for us.
If we're lucky, they will.
- Pendleton?
- I've found him.
What about the stuff?
Loch Lednock. By the dam.
Be careful. It's packaged.
I'll meet you there
tomorrow. Eight o'clock.
Well, has he got it?
He... He knows where it is.
We meet him
eight o'clock tomorrow morning.
Loch Lednock.
He'll be dead by then. I just hope
he gave you the right instructions.
♪ It was the year of the preacher...
- ♪ It was the time of... ♪
- ♪ It was the time of the preacher
♪ In the year of 01
♪ When you think it's all over
♪ It has only begun
♪ And he cried like a baby
♪ And he screamed like a panther
- ♪ In the middle of the night...
- Yeah, you remember.
♪ And he saddled his pony
♪ And he went for a ride... ♪
I am no longer seeking vengeance.
You know what you are, Craven?
You're something special.
You've been freeze-dried from some earlier
epoch, just waiting for this to happen.
Waiting for what to happen?
All this.
The confrontation between good and evil.
- And what side are you on?
- The side of the angels, boy. Always have been.
Jedburgh...
You are not and never will be
on the side of the angels.
There are angels who will stand by me.
St Michael, for instance.
- Then, you do believe in Gaia?
- As an idea or what?
As an idea.
You mean that the earth goddess
will defend itself against all dangers?
- Including Man.
- Man will always win against nature.
You were saying?
I think you're wrong.
On my way here,
I had a weird conversation with Emma.
She warned me about a black flower,
which she said would spread
across the northern hemisphere
and melt the polar ice cap.
- Grogan would zap it.
- She said...
that the planet
will turn against mankind and destroy him.
Have you ever been to Afghanistan, Craven?
- Is this relevant?
- I was there last year,
studying the drinking habits
of the Russian soldiers.
They'll drink anything
as long as it's alcohol-based.
Glycol, anti-freeze, brake fluid.
But the black flowers
were out there Craven, up on the mountains.
The Afghans eat them.
I think you're taking the piss, Jedburgh.
I am merely confirming
the existence of the black flowers.
If Grogan don't zap them, the Afghans will.
Ah, shit.
I think you're wrong.
If there is a battle between the
planet and mankind, the planet will win.
Where's that going to leave you?
On the side of the planet.
Do you want to wait inside
or go and meet them head on?
I don't see the point of
moving from this spot.
The point is to take as
many with us as we can.
- Why?
- Because they're going to have our ass.
- Well, what's next?
- Geneva. Nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
- Same old circuit?
- We get some new faces.
Of course, the old ones drop out.
What's for pudding?
- You will come tomorrow?
- Yes, but I'm swimming off Sizewell later.
Every weekend sees one of us swimming
around outside some nuclear power station,
while the world's press takes snaps
from a safe distance.
- Makes me sick.
- How sick?
- Colonel Jedburgh?
- Yes, sir?
What's the problem?
No problem...
Normally, I don't drink champagne,
but tonight's an exception, I think.
- Is this Craven?
- Just do it.
- Do it!
- No, no, old son.
You're on our side.
I AM NOT ON YOUR SIDE!
My dear clemmie,
within hours of Jedburgh's death
and in conditions of great secrecy,
the plutonium was
recovered from Loch Lednock.
It was an IIF show.
No one else would take responsibility for the
stuff, certainly not Her Majesty's Government.
Myself and Pendleton
turned up just to show the flag
and to remind Grogan
that this was only the first round.
Ah, yes... Grogan was there,
watching the proceedings
like some 20th-century vampire,
although after his exposure
to Jedburgh's plutonium at the conference,
I don't hold out much for his chances.
You asked about craven. The last we saw of
him was up on the hill overlooking the loch,
staring down at us like a wild animal.
Neither myself nor Pendleton
felt it appropriate to wave.
Besides, by my reckoning,
he was not long for this world.
When we left, he was still on the hill.
I only wish we could have shouted
some words of comfort,
told him that in the end,
the earth, Emma's beloved Gaia,
would be saved from ultimate destruction,
and that the good in all of us would prevail.
But in the circumstances,
I don't think he would have believed it.
As we drove down the valley,
I thought I heard a cry,
but it was lost in the
noise of the helicopter.
When I looked back, he was gone.
Emma!
With Jedburgh.
Where's Jedburgh?
I don't know.
What happened?
We found the hot cell.
And?
Where am I?
You're in an American Air Force hospital.
I feel sick.
Radiation, Craven.
Nausea's the first of its symptoms.
- Has bad is it?
- It's bad.
It's important, old chap,
that you tell me everything you know.
They found the hot cell.
It had been sealed off.
Apparently, there had been some sort of
explosion, resulting in massive radiation.
Anyway, Jedburgh went in
and located the plutonium
and carried it out in a Harrods bag.
Has Craven got any idea
where Jedburgh went?
He says his last words were something
about "meeting Moriarty at the falls".
If there's an Irish component
to this, I shall retire.
They all drowned.
Dad.
Em.
- What's that?
- A present.
- It's black.
- It's an arctic flower.
They all drowned.
I know. I was there.
Why didn't you tell me?
Dad, you were on their side.
No!
- I'm Neilson.
- Nallers.
What happened?
There's been a shoot-out.
Jedburgh and three of my men.
- Where's Jedburgh?
- He got away.
What about the plutonium?
He took it with him.
Sir!
- We've found another one!
- Four of my men...
- What about the police?
- I haven't called them yet.
- Well done, Jemima!
- This girl's no slouch.
Right, Morag. I'll go with the
four. Put the pressure on, OK?
You're in with a chance, my dear.
- What do you think, Pete?
- Six inches on the right.
- Piece of cake.
- Should be.
- Bloody good shot.
- Well done, Darius.
Home again, home again, jiggedy-jig.
Are you all right, old sport?
- Yeah, I'm fine.
- You're not looking too good.
I think that old lady in there
is trying to poison me.
I'll see you later.
Mr Jedborough.
You forgot your sandwich
again today, Mr Jedborough.
Mrs Girvan,
mince between two slices
of white bread is not my idea of lunch.
I'd rather eat the damned Bible.
Mr Jedborough!
Jedburgh.
Hernandez? Cómo estas? Darius Jedburgh.
Yeah... You recuerda me.
Look, I'm the hombre who put the bomb
in your bus about a year or so ago.
Yeah, that's right. High Command.
Yeah. Yeah. The gringo from Texas.
Hey, listen, Hernandez.
I'm taking a vacation in Scotland...
It's in Great Britain.
Yeah, Kilmichael.
Kill as in muerte - you know,
death, murder.
Michael as in St Michael,
the patron saint of the CIA.
I know he's your patron saint.
Haven't you wised up yet?
Every time you pray to
him he tells the agency.
- Harcourt?
- It's clementine. I'm with craven.
- What made him skip?
- He saw a lead coffin.
It had his name on it.
At least he knows his days are numbered.
Yes. Yes, he does.
That's why he wants to find Jedburgh. He
wants a guarantee that he won't be hassled.
- And he'll get back the plutonium?
- Yes, he feels that's his responsibility.
Tell him to try Scotland. Grogan's there.
He's at a conference at the Gleneagles Hotel.
- This business at Northmoor.
- Yes.
The minister wants to know
whether you sanctioned the operation.
Well, in a roundabout way, yes.
- Darius Jedburgh.
- Hello, Taffy.
- How they hanging?
- Never better.
This is Carlo Barlotti.
Brookings Institute.
- Hello, Colonel.
- Pleased to meet you.
- Is Jerry Grogan coming?
- No. He'll be late. Business in London.
- How many bodies?
- Four, Minister.
- And three at the plant makes seven.
- How long can this go on for?
- Until he's caught.
- Do you think he's mad?
Well, he wasn't before,
but he certainly is now.
Now, this is the report on IIF?
It's a copy. We sent the original
to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
- Why?
- It proves that there is a hot cell at Northmoor,
built in contravention of IAEA safeguards.
It was never under IAEA safeguards.
The contamination
in the reservoir can now be traced to it.
They are liable to prosecution under
the Radioactive Substances Act of 1960.
Is this really within your brief, Harcourt?
Northmoor was producing plutonium illegally,
contrary to the Nuclear Installations Act of 1968,
the NPT and every other
international agreement.
They are breaking every law
in the nuclear rule book.
Northmoor was producing very small quantities
of plutonium by a secret laser process,
which was classified as experimental.
I knew about it,
and so did some colleagues.
- You knew about it?!
- From day one.
An experimental station with a defence component
is not subject to the restrictions you've quoted.
If you knew what caused the contamination,
why was I brought in to investigate it?
Because the Americans became suspicious.
- So I was purely part of a deception plan?
- Yes, if you like.
- You must have known that I'd find out.
- Yes, of course I did.
I just thought you might take longer,
that's all,
and have used less unorthodox methods of
breaching the mine than Craven and Jedburgh.
- I will not withdraw that report.
- That's up to the Cabinet.
But it's your duty to get the plutonium back,
since you were responsible for its removal.
How long have you got?
Three days like this,
and then it's rapidly
downhill... or so I'm told.
What are you going to do about it?
I haven't...
I don't know.
I'd like to find Jedburgh first, if I can.
- He still has the plutonium.
- I know.
You know, I'm very fond of you,
and if there's any way I can...
You've already been an enormous help.
You can't die alone, Ronnie.
Why not?
We all do, you know.
I left a report of my investigations
so far with my bank manager.
If you give him this,
he'll give the report to you.
It was going to the Chief Constable...
but now I'd rather Gaia have it.
Don't try and come after me.
Oh, excuse me.
Excuse me a second.
- Hi, Bobby.
- Hello, Darius. What the hell are you doing here?
Fulfilling a long-standing engagement.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second
NATO Conference on Directed Energy Weapons.
- Hello, Pendleton.
- This is Bennett.
- Who?
- Bennett.
I'm speaking from the Gleneagles Hotel
in Scotland. Jedburgh is here...
about to take part in a debate on the high
frontier. What are you going to do about it?
The question is, how high is high?
With the latest Star Wars technology,
are we on the edge of a new space race?
And what does that presage for the
future of that other race, the human race?
My sources in Washington sent me a
complete rundown of what's going on there.
If you believe Washington, you're naïve.
Bennett called. Jedburgh's
at Gleneagles... and he's not playing golf.
- Bobby, what's up?
- No time to talk. Go straight onto the platform.
- Where's Jedburgh?
- Inside.
Darius Jedburgh is an old friend.
For several years, before his posting to
London as an energy attaché at the US Embassy,
Colonel Jedburgh reported to the Director
of Scientific Intelligence at Langley.
He's also been a member of the Standing
Committee on Nuclear Materials Safeguards
and the International
Anti-Terrorism Committee.
Finally, I'm sure
that my last guest needs no introduction.
Our first nuclear entrepreneur, the President
of the Fusion Corporation of Kansas,
the Henry Ford of the Sunrise Industries,
ladies and gentlemen, Jerry C Grogan.
Hello, Darius.
Where's my plutonium?
And so, to open our debate tonight
on the future of space,
I call upon the President of the Fusion
Corporation Kansas, Jerry Grogan.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I must apologise for my late arrival.
However, I had to wait for confirmation
that my company's bid for International
Irradiated Fuels is to be allowed to stand.
It is.
The decision to allow the bid to proceed
from the Fusion corporation of Kansas
for International Irradiated Fuels,
the British private nuclear waste plant,
was greeted in the city
with cautious optimism.
Fusion, a contender for substantial contracts
for President Reagan's Star Wars programme,
will bring to IIF fresh capital
and a new sense of purpose.
There's still strong opposition
to the sale in some quarters.
At a NATO conference
at Gleneagles Hotel this morning...
When we unlock a chain reaction,
the energy in it was put there
in the first ten seconds
of the universe's existence.
That is an awesome thing. We are tapping
into the very source of God's creation.
Today we have access
to that power, but we do not control it,
and that is the sole purpose of my
corporation - to find a way to control it.
When we have done so, we can say, for the
first time in history, Man will be in charge.
That's enough, Dad.
What we're trying to do at the moment is
to take the plutonium bomb and explode it
in a vessel no larger
than the circumference of my arms,
and to control the energy in there.
By harnessing that energy, we can direct
it, as lasers, half way across the world
to shoot down enemy rockets in their silos.
That is the capability for which we are aiming.
It will cost us billions of dollars to get there,
but in the end, it'll be worth it.
You're getting angry again.
I'm dying.
Do you regret it?
- I feel so much is left undone.
- Other people will continue the job.
You'll be with me.
- I still don't understand.
- Dad, it's happened before, you know.
Millions of years ago,
when the Earth was cold,
it looked as if life
on our planet would cease to exist.
But black flowers began to grow,
multiplying across its face,
till the entire landscape
was covered in blooms.
Slowly, the black flowers sucked in the heat
of the sun, and life began to evolve again.
That is the power of Gaia.
It will take more
than a black flower to save us this time.
This time, when it comes, it will melt
the polar ice cap. Millions will die.
The planet will protect itself.
It's important to realise that.
- If Man is the enemy, it will destroy him.
- Is this a warning?
All I'm saying is don't spend
your last hours seeking revenge, Dad.
The planet will do it for us... in time.
I believe that fusion motors will power
the great spaceships of the 21st century,
which will leave the earth in their
hundreds to colonise the solar system.
That, ultimately,
is what the phrase "high frontier" means.
The historical expansion of Man into space,
with all the parallels
it evokes of the rigours and heroism
of America's 19th-century trek westward.
Like our forefathers,
we will be escaping poverty and tyranny,
and, as in the past,
war will provide the anvil upon which...
- The others?
- On their way.
I foresee, within the next 100 years,
the beginning of Man as an
interplanetary being, a celestial warrior.
And furthermore, a solar empire for the
United States of America and her allies.
Looking at our overpopulated,
over-exhausted planet,
I don't see how
we can turn our backs on such a future,
no matter what it costs
or how long it takes.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
$500,000 million for a defence system
for Washington DC seems a bit pricey to me,
but then, I don't live there...
- He has to be stopped.
- He's an accredited speaker.
The man is sick!
- He'll say things better left unsaid.
- That audience is 100% secure.
They can take anything
he can throw at them.
Jerry Grogan suggests
that in 100 years from now,
the human race
will leave the planet and move into space.
Jerry is a hell of a salesman. He can make
such an unappetising idea sound attractive.
Now, the way Jerry tells it, it sounds just
like an extension of the old Oregon Trail.
It calls for the same American virtues
of self-reliance, independence, know-how.
But it will not be that way.
This new international nuclear state that Jerry's
a part of, they do not cherish such virtues.
You got that straight from the horse's
mouth, because I used to be a part of it.
Read between the lines
of a Jerry Grogan speech,
you'll find not the frontiersman
but the Teutonic knight.
Not democracy but a despotism.
This future nuclear state
will be an absolute state
whose authority will derive not from the
people but from the possession of plutonium.
And to make sure
we all know what we're talking about,
I brought some with me today.
Two bars of weapons-grade plutonium.
I stole this stuff on orders,
straight out of Jerry's latest acquisition.
Twenty-four people
have died for this stuff, including me.
All I have to do is bring these bars
together and we'll have a criticality.
- Careful, Darius.
- 400 rads, ladies and gentlemen.
A lethal dose to anyone
within ten yards. Get it while it's hot!
Hey, don't y'all want to be part
of the new age of plutonium lunacy?
Don't you want to see mankind become enslaved
to this new priesthood of plutonium culture,
see the earth become a desert,
all its natural resources plundered to
build some new Jerusalem in the Milky Way?
- Why did you let him go?
- We had no alternative.
- None?
- He still has 20 kilos.
In an explosive configuration - his words.
- Is 20 kilos enough?
- To dispose of the east coast of Scotland... yes.
- If he wanted that, he'd have done it by now.
- Nobody was taking that chance.
Instead, a particularly sensitive
relationship between you and my government
is public property.
We could have had a catastrophe in there.
Colonel.
- What did he say about Northmoor?
- Not much.
The whole hall was in such a state
of pandemonium, I doubt if anyone noticed.
The man is quite insane.
He completely misread Jerry's argument.
Did he? I thought he put his finger
right on it. Either we stay or we go.
Go where?
- Well, then. What next? We have to find him.
- We should leave it to Craven.
- Bennett?
- There are alternatives.
There's a telephone call
from Inspector Craven for Mr Harcourt.
Any objection to leaving it to Craven?
As long as he finds the plutonium,
it's OK by me.
Well, Harcourt, you'd better make sure
that he's fully briefed... hadn't you?
He used to play here twice a week.
Said he felt at home.
- When did you see him last?
- Oh, a couple of days now.
He was a good loser,
which is just as well,
because we have a lot of strong players.
OK. That's fine. Thanks.
- Who's their man?
- Nallers.
He drinks at the Chelsea Barracks. He's,
um...
He's rumoured to be the state executioner.
Who would he be after here?
It could be you, old boy. The Minister didn't
take too kindly to that report of yours.
But it's more likely to be Jedburgh. Ah,
good.
Thank you.
I thought I ordered oatcake.
What took you so long?
- How have you been feeling?
- Sick.
Boy, have I ever been sick.
- Did you come alone?
- Yeah.
What the hell are you doing up here?
Mostly dying. I've bought the farm, boy.
You talk to Harcourt?
- Last night.
- He tell you I was at Gleneagles?
Yeah. You caused quite a stir.
- Yeah. Nothing on TV, though, I see.
- No. They've got that screwed down tight.
Yeah.
What about you?
- What about me?
- How long have you got?
Two weeks.
That's too bad.
- It was a hell of a mission though, huh?
- You didn't complete it.
Well, they were waiting for me with guns.
My own people started shooting at me.
Honour went out of the window
the day they invented that stuff.
Do you know what
Harcourt told me last night?
Grogan had reached the conclusion
that the enquiry would stop the takeover,
so he decided to get the
plutonium another way.
Then he thought of you. Who would
walk into a cave full of radiation?
You would, given the right scenario.
All he had to do was call Washington
to make sure they fed you the right orders.
They didn't just betray you...
they made a fool of you.
No shit, Sherlock.
You think I didn't figure that out?
- Where is the plutonium?
- It's in the bottom of a loch.
- What shape is it in?
- It's in pretty good shape. I packed it in chalk.
And as core,
I put a pound of plastic explosive.
- You turned it into a bomb?!
- Yeah.
- Why?
- 'Cause that's the problem with plutonium.
It's limited in its application.
It's not user-friendly, but as a vehicle
for regaining one's self-respect,
it's got a lot going for it.
Damned right I turned it into a bomb.
Is it armed? Fused?
There's a detonator,
if that's what you mean.
It's a plutonium bullet.
Would it work?
Well, fired from a high-velocity rifle...
it just might.
A nuclear explosion?
Hell of a way to go, huh?
- It seems rather hard on the rest of Scotland.
- Yeah, that's what I thought,
especially the golf courses,
So I decided against it.
What other ideas have
you had... to end it all?
Well, I called up this especially
humourless bastard called Hernandez.
He runs this rinky-dinky terrorist outfit.
I'm supposed to be on his death list,
so I invited him up. He hasn't showed.
- Where's the plutonium?
- Loch Lednock,
ten miles west of here, by the dam.
- Mind if I use the phone?
- You going to call Harcourt?
- Yes.
- He'll only turn it over to Grogan.
They'll screw you the
same way they screwed me.
I'll have to take that chance.
Craven?
They'll trace the call.
- They?
- The opposition.
They'll come looking for us.
If we're lucky, they will.
- Pendleton?
- I've found him.
What about the stuff?
Loch Lednock. By the dam.
Be careful. It's packaged.
I'll meet you there
tomorrow. Eight o'clock.
Well, has he got it?
He... He knows where it is.
We meet him
eight o'clock tomorrow morning.
Loch Lednock.
He'll be dead by then. I just hope
he gave you the right instructions.
♪ It was the year of the preacher...
- ♪ It was the time of... ♪
- ♪ It was the time of the preacher
♪ In the year of 01
♪ When you think it's all over
♪ It has only begun
♪ And he cried like a baby
♪ And he screamed like a panther
- ♪ In the middle of the night...
- Yeah, you remember.
♪ And he saddled his pony
♪ And he went for a ride... ♪
I am no longer seeking vengeance.
You know what you are, Craven?
You're something special.
You've been freeze-dried from some earlier
epoch, just waiting for this to happen.
Waiting for what to happen?
All this.
The confrontation between good and evil.
- And what side are you on?
- The side of the angels, boy. Always have been.
Jedburgh...
You are not and never will be
on the side of the angels.
There are angels who will stand by me.
St Michael, for instance.
- Then, you do believe in Gaia?
- As an idea or what?
As an idea.
You mean that the earth goddess
will defend itself against all dangers?
- Including Man.
- Man will always win against nature.
You were saying?
I think you're wrong.
On my way here,
I had a weird conversation with Emma.
She warned me about a black flower,
which she said would spread
across the northern hemisphere
and melt the polar ice cap.
- Grogan would zap it.
- She said...
that the planet
will turn against mankind and destroy him.
Have you ever been to Afghanistan, Craven?
- Is this relevant?
- I was there last year,
studying the drinking habits
of the Russian soldiers.
They'll drink anything
as long as it's alcohol-based.
Glycol, anti-freeze, brake fluid.
But the black flowers
were out there Craven, up on the mountains.
The Afghans eat them.
I think you're taking the piss, Jedburgh.
I am merely confirming
the existence of the black flowers.
If Grogan don't zap them, the Afghans will.
Ah, shit.
I think you're wrong.
If there is a battle between the
planet and mankind, the planet will win.
Where's that going to leave you?
On the side of the planet.
Do you want to wait inside
or go and meet them head on?
I don't see the point of
moving from this spot.
The point is to take as
many with us as we can.
- Why?
- Because they're going to have our ass.
- Well, what's next?
- Geneva. Nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
- Same old circuit?
- We get some new faces.
Of course, the old ones drop out.
What's for pudding?
- You will come tomorrow?
- Yes, but I'm swimming off Sizewell later.
Every weekend sees one of us swimming
around outside some nuclear power station,
while the world's press takes snaps
from a safe distance.
- Makes me sick.
- How sick?
- Colonel Jedburgh?
- Yes, sir?
What's the problem?
No problem...
Normally, I don't drink champagne,
but tonight's an exception, I think.
- Is this Craven?
- Just do it.
- Do it!
- No, no, old son.
You're on our side.
I AM NOT ON YOUR SIDE!
My dear clemmie,
within hours of Jedburgh's death
and in conditions of great secrecy,
the plutonium was
recovered from Loch Lednock.
It was an IIF show.
No one else would take responsibility for the
stuff, certainly not Her Majesty's Government.
Myself and Pendleton
turned up just to show the flag
and to remind Grogan
that this was only the first round.
Ah, yes... Grogan was there,
watching the proceedings
like some 20th-century vampire,
although after his exposure
to Jedburgh's plutonium at the conference,
I don't hold out much for his chances.
You asked about craven. The last we saw of
him was up on the hill overlooking the loch,
staring down at us like a wild animal.
Neither myself nor Pendleton
felt it appropriate to wave.
Besides, by my reckoning,
he was not long for this world.
When we left, he was still on the hill.
I only wish we could have shouted
some words of comfort,
told him that in the end,
the earth, Emma's beloved Gaia,
would be saved from ultimate destruction,
and that the good in all of us would prevail.
But in the circumstances,
I don't think he would have believed it.
As we drove down the valley,
I thought I heard a cry,
but it was lost in the
noise of the helicopter.
When I looked back, he was gone.
Emma!