Fugitive

A CIA agent is murdered in London, thrown off a balcony by a German terrorist cell, and CI5 respond the only way that makes sense: they set up a fake arms deal with the killers. It is the sort of dirty pragmatism the show does best, treating a murder as a business problem that needs the right bait. The cell is planning something bigger, and the only way to get near them is to sell them something.

Doyle grabs one of the cell's members, a woman called Karen, which should give them the upper hand. But Bodie, working undercover as an arms merchant, gets his cover blown and ends up the hostage instead. The exchange is set for an airfield, and the gang sweeten the deal by tying fifteen pounds of explosives to Bodie before the handover, which rather concentrates the mind of everyone involved. The terrorists plan to use him as their ticket out of the country.

Brian Clemens, Gerry O'Hara and Anthony Read wrote it, Dennis C. Lewiston directed. Michael Byrne is Werner Dreisinger, Vickery Turner is Karen, Brigitte Kahn is Christina Herzog, with Andrew Seear as Heinrich, Conrad Asquith as Klaus, Paul Antrim as Slater and Eleanor David as Julie.

The fake deal is the fun of it. There is a particular flavour of weary, professional grit in watching CI5 invent a whole business just to get close to people they cannot arrest yet, and the episode enjoys the details of the deception as much as the gunfire. The arms merchant cover is exactly the sort of role Bodie was born to play, which makes losing it hurt all the more.

And fifteen pounds of explosives strapped to Lewis Collins gives the finale a proper countdown feeling, the sort of deadline that turns a trade-off into a rescue mission. The hour knows exactly what it is, and it does it well.