Lie Down With Dragons (1)

Bob Tate is barely out of hospital and he is already going undercover again. The last time we saw him he was on a casino floor with a bullet in him. The case now is a string of robberies in Triad-controlled Chinatown, and the squad needs a man inside. Tate volunteers, or is volunteered; the episode does not linger on the paperwork. What matters is that he is in, deep enough that the door has closed behind him.

It goes wrong quickly. His cover is blown and the gang has him cornered, and to stay alive he has to bargain. The only currency he has left is a consignment of machine guns, which tells you exactly what kind of company he is keeping. The episode's real subject is a copper with nothing to trade but the means to make things worse.

And the show is good at this kind of tension. Every scene inside the gang is a test Tate can fail, and here he fails early, then spends the rest of the hour talking his way out of it. There is no cavalry moment; the squad on the outside can only watch and wait. Tate talks fast and thinks faster, but the room keeps shrinking.

Steve Griffiths wrote it, Terry Winsor directed, and it first aired on 22 February 1996 as the opening half of a two-part story. Reece Dinsdale's Scott, Lynda Steadman's Ash, Robert Willox's Donachie, Gary McDonald's Oxford, Pooky Quesnel's Harris and David Sterne's Uttley fill out the squad. The new faces carry the danger: David Yip as Jimmy Mak, Tom Wu as Chan Ming, and Glyn Grimstead's David Ash in the supporting ranks.

It is the set-up half of a two-parter, and it leaves Tate in the worst possible place. Part two will have to get him out of it.