"The Sandbaggers'' © 1978 and 1980 by Yorkshire Television.
14. All In A Good Cause 15. To Hell With Justice 16. Unusual Approach 17. My Name Is Anna Wiseman 18. Sometimes We Play Dirty Too 19. Who Needs Enemies 20. Opposite Numbers
Neil Burnside
Roy Marsden
Willie Caine
Ray Lonnen
Sir Geoffrey Wellingham Alan MacNaughtan
Matthew Peele
Jerome Willis
Jeff Ross
Bob Sherman
"C" (John Tower Gibbs)
Dennis Burgess
Mike Wallace
Michael Cashman
Marianne Straker
Sue Holderness
Brian Milton
Barkley Johnson
Ted Prescott
Richard Shaw
Stan Barclay
Michael O'Hagan
Sam Lawes
Brian Osborne
Bruce
Paul Haley
Edward Tyler
Peter Laird
14.
"All In A Good Cause"
Written by Ian Mackintosh
Produced by Michael Ferguson
Directed by Peter Cregeen
First Broadcast Date (UK): June 9, 1980
The Foreign Office is about to close the
Caribbean Station in Kingston due to budget cuts-after earlier closings of stations in
Nassau, Port-au-Prince, Santo Domingo, and Havana this will leave SIS with no Caribbean
presence at all. A letter over Neil's signature arguing against the closure, drafted by
Mike Wallace, is rejected by the new "C" as being too blunt and critical of the
Government-it brands the proposed closure as "short-sighted and hazardous". When
Neil argues that "C" should be fighting for a bigger budget, "C" says,
"you're going to have to give me the ammunition, which should be slightly
more sophisticated than that sledgehammer of a letter". Neil must rethink
his argument and respond within 24 hours-but he's about to get a bigger problem thrown at
him.
D-INT Edward Tyler drops in on Neil to tell him that he's discovered from a source inside MI5 that Jeff Ross' wife, Jenny, is the target of an MI5 operation. Despite the Special Relationship, Neil's first loyalty must be to the British firm-at least until he knows what's up. Burnside tells Willie to discreetly tail Jenny and see if she's under surveillance. A morning visit to Wellingham brings the news that his opposite number at the Home Office has been asking questions about the Special Relationship, of which "Five" has always been jealous. When Neil shares Tyler's news, Wellingham says he wants MI5 stopped. Mike Wallace decides to lunch with a friend in MI5 to see if he can find anything out.
Willie returns with the news that Jenny has apparently been seeing a man named Trevor D'arcy who has been actively trying to bed her but she's resisted - so far. Also Willie could not spot any MI5 "minders". Over lunch, Jeff Ross asks for Neil's help - he thinks he's under surveillance, and not by the KGB. Mike reports that his friend dropped a number of broad hints at lunch that virtually confirmed Tyler's report. Neil thinks that D'arcy may be a KGB operative, and that "Five" intends to interfere at the last moment so as to put Jeff in their debt, and thereby start a "Special Relationship" of their own. Neil decides to have SIS step in and blow the operation, warning off Jenny before it gets to that stage, but after finding out whether or not D'arcy is KGB.
Marianne thinks she's cracked the Caribbean problem by finding a rule - written by the Prime Minister - that no theater of operation should be more than 1,000 miles from a Station. Unfortunately, Caracas is within that radius. Neil decides to go for "The Big Lie" and drafts a paper claiming that Caracas is 1,018 miles from Kingston. Willie comments, "get them concentrating so hard on one they take the other for granted" - and suddenly a light bulb goes on. Neil calls Tyler and asks him if he knows D'arcy. Tyler confirms that D'arcy is D-OPS for MI5! Furthermore, it was D'arcy who told Tyler about the op. Neil asks Tyler to fix a meeting for him with D'arcy, saying, "he's at lunch all right - we even know where."
As Neil and D'arcy walk around London, the MI5 man fills Neil in on the whole sordid story. A highly regarded senior USAF general has just received a high appointment from the U.S. President. Unfortunately, he happens to be a pederast and child molester, and the KGB has been blackmailing him with photos, squeezing him for high-level secrets - mostly British ones. MI5 want him arrested and tried for both the sexual and espionage crimes, but the President has been negotiating with the Government to drop the charges. Meanwhile, he handed CIA the task of targeting MI5, and Jeff - under orders from the top - came up with the idea of "targeting" MI5 through D'arcy with Jenny!
D'arcy was to go to Jenny's flat and be interrupted by the police and charged with attempted rape - a charge that would be dropped if the Brits let the general walk. D'arcy, being suspicious, discovered Jenny's identity through a routine check; and "Five" decided to keep stringing CIA along until "the Americans were told to bite on the bullet, because we're going to do the general". At this point, the hints were thrown at SIS fast and furious (even Wellingham's help was recruited!) in expectation that SIS would step in and stop the whole thing, despite a clear-cut jurisdictional rule forbidding them from operating within the UK. MI5 did not want to tell CIA that they had been "rumbled" because they still want to be matey with CIA. Neil realizes that Jeff wanted to use SIS to warn him if the operation had been blown.
When he confronts Jeff, he tells him that as far as he's
concerned CIA can burn down MI5 headquarters, but he objects to Jeff's ill-usage of their
friendship. Jeff asks him if he's talked to "Five", and despite the meeting with
D'arcy, Neil says, "I don't talk to 'Five' - and as of now I don't talk to
you" (however, the rift will heal, if only superficially - Neil considers
the Special Relationship too important). As Jeff leaves, "C" summons Neil to the
sixth floor to inform him that the FCO has accepted the thousand-mile argument and will
keep the Kingston station open. He presents Neil with a ruler "to assist you in your
future measurement of maps". "C" then tells Neil he intends to keep a very
close eye on him, and not to let this success go to his head:
C: You have no monopoly on deviousness.
Neil: That's something I've just discovered, sir.
Gale Gladstone as Jenny Ross
John Steiner as Trevor D'arcy
Kristopher Kum as Chinese Waiter
15.
"To Hell With Justice"
Written by Ian Mackintosh
Produced by Michael Ferguson
Directed by Peter Cregeen
First Broadcast Date (UK): June 16, 1980
Director of Intelligence Edward Tyler
decides to visit Malta station for a few days; ostensibly officially, but actually, he
admits to Neil, for a few days' rest after making a mistake regarding a job in Singapore -
the first mistake Burnside has ever known him make. Picked up by Malta No.2 Len Shepard at
the airport, Tyler is dropped off at the Excelsior Hotel in Floriana, near the Station
offices, but leaves his coat in the back of Len's car. Returning to the hotel, Shepard
sees Tyler (a married man)"stepping out in the company of an extremely dolly
bird".
Shepard trails Tyler and the "dolly bird" discreetly for a short time and then returns to the Excelsior, discovering that they have adjoining rooms arranged by the woman, one Margarete Müller, traveling on a West German passport. SIS rules require that such dalliances be reported to the station for security checks - a rule that Tyler, a brilliant officer, has violated. After discussing it with Head of Station Bernie Tindale, Shepard books himself on a flight to London to speak to Burnside unofficially since a telephone call or signal would be recorded.
Burnside and Caine discuss the situation and Neil's concern that "If Tyler has gone over it'll make Philby look like Snow White", and the two concur that if he is doubling he must be secretly assassinated - a trial or publicized defection would destroy SIS credibility for fifty years. Neil decides to send Willie to watch Tyler without telling "C" or the Deputy Chief until they've arrived in Malta. Willie insists that Mike must come too if he is to effectively "shut off" the island.
However, Neil's clinging to the hope that Tyler's odd
behavior doesn't fit the situation - if he were defecting and the woman was there to
"lift" him he'd be in Russia already.Neil hopes that Tyler's just being silly
over a woman, and he can get him back to the fold discreetly - Tyler's the best D-INT that
SIS has had in years. Neil and Edward like each other, and they've always worked well
together - a rare situation; many past Intel and Ops directors have barely spoken to each
other. He takes advice "off the record" from Wellingham, who concurs:
WELLINGHAM: Go ahead as planned, but if the egg
ends up on your face ...
BURNSIDE: You'll solve the problem by cutting off my head.
WELLINGHAM: And carrying it round Westminster on a pole.
When pressed by Peele, who's angry over Neil's unofficial and as yet unauthorized sending of both Willie and Mike to Malta, Burnside tells Peele the full story. Peele at first decides to let Neil deal with the problem discreetly. But Peele later decides to cover his behind by telling "C", who gives Neil a dressing-down, ordering him to forget the assassination and to bring Tyler home "in a trunk, if necessary". Burnside angrily tells Peele: "There are a lot of things I have to live with, but selling out's not one of them...God save the pension and the knighthood and to Hell with justice!"
Caine and Wallace, together with Malta Station, report that Tyler and Müller have been walking through the streets of Malta and seem to be arguing a lot. If he is defecting, he's dawdling quite a bit. A late night ring at the doorbell of Neil's flat reveals Jeff Ross with a case of Coca-Cola, Neil's favorite drink. He wants to make nice after the mess last week ("All In A Good Cause"), but he also wants to know what Tyler is doing in Malta hanging out with Valentina Kasilyev of the KGB (Müller's real identity). Neil tells Jeff to tell Langley that SIS is "targeting" the KGB woman with Tyler, while Tyler is to be killed in a staged accident - Burnside has no intention of obeying "C". The next morning Neil tells Wellingham that he intends to go to Malta and kill Tyler himself, possibly sacrificing his career but insuring the survival of the Special Section and the Service itself.
Before he can get away from the office, Neil is intercepted by "C" who orders him to Malta to take charge of bringing Tyler home. In a garden park in Valetta, Neil confronts Edward and the KGB woman, who leaves. Tyler reveals that on his first posting in Moscow, twenty years previously, he fell into a "honey trap" and was on the double-agent treadmill ever since, but the loyalty he felt to SIS was tearing him apart to the point that he finally asked to be lifted.
Perversely, he wanted the British to have a sporting chance
to stop him, so he left his coat in Shepard's car, and gave Kasilyev such a hard time
stalling that her masters offered him the choice of leaving immediately for Moscow - or
committing suicide. He seems almost glad that it's now to be an assassination - until he
finds out his friend Neil is to be the killer. Suddenly, he stuffs the KGB-supplied
cyanide pill between cheek and gum. When asked to tell Tyler's wife, Annie, that it was a
heart attack, tears fill Burnside's eyes for the first time since Laura's death. He tries
to convince Tyler to spit the pill out and come back to London, conceding:
BURNSIDE (smiling): "C" was right. He didn't want you killed but
I argued for it.
TYLER (laughing): No more than I expected. (somberly) What I didn't expect was that
you would be making the hit. I owe you more than that.
BURNSIDE: Come on, spit the damn thing out, I'll take you back to London.
TYLER: I'm too tired, Neil, much too tired. Now just walk away, and when you're a
safe distance from me, not to be connected with me...Goodbye, Neil.
BURNSIDE (fighting back tears): Thanks for making it easy, Edward.
TYLER (with a half-smile): My last service to the SIS.
As Neil reaches the park gate, the crowd is just
beginning to gather around Tyler's corpse.
Back at the hotel, Neil concedes to Willie too that
"C" was right:
"We have to ask ourselves what code did Tyler offend, and who says the
offence is serious enough to warrant the punishment?"
Just as surely as does "Special Relationship", "To Hell With Justice" marks another intense turning point in "The Sandbaggers" - once again, Neil loses someone to whom he feels close. Indeed, given his troubled, sparse romantic life, one could argue that he feels the loss of this male friend just as keenly as he did Laura's death, if not more so.
There's also the operational aspect to consider:
how many events from previous episodes can now be explained by Tyler's
perfidy?
I'm not for a minute insisting Tyler had a hand in any of these, but in retrospect one has to wonder:
Mark Eden as Bernard Tindale
John Alkin as Len Shepard
Glynis Barber as Margaret Mueller
16.
"Unusual Approach"
Written by Ian Mackintosh
Produced by Michael Ferguson
Directed by David Cunliffe
First Broadcast Date (UK): June 23, 1980
At the beginning of this episode, the only
one in the series to overtly combine liberal doses of humor with the espionage, Neil is in
a particularly foul mood. He's just decided to quit his forty - a - day cigarette
habit, and 'C' has ordered him to go on a working holiday to Rhodes, escorting Peele and
Wellingham to a top-secret conference. When Neil cancels lunch with Jeff Ross and explains
why, Ross tells his secretary to send a signal to CIA headquarters in Langley.
Ross waits until Neil has got on the plane to come see Willie, who in Neil's absence is acting D-OPS. CIA has a big problem. A member of their covert action staff has assassinated a Russian Army colonel. His escape route has broken down and he's taken a bullet in the shoulder. He's holed up in a "bolt-hole" in Sikhumi near the Turkish border and needs help to get out-the Russian army has started a search of the town and will surely find him within two days. Jeff asks for a Sandbagger to lift him, and says that the US government is offering the British a "blank check" for the rescue.
Willie initially refuses, but Ross presses, saying the man in Russia is Bob Cheever, who saved Neil's life in Saigon five years previously. Willie agrees to consult "C", who tells Willie that he must send the relatively inexperienced Wallace if the FCO clears the rescue. "C" goes to see Sir Roderick Hives, Wellingham's deputy at the FCO. Hives takes the matter to the PM, and gets the operation approved. In return, the Americans agree to some rather insignificant policy concessions on Mid-East affairs.
Meanwhile, in Rhodes, both Burnside and Wellingham are miserable, thanks largely to Peele, who is arranging tours of old temples and Frankish palaces between conference sessions-when he's not prattling on about string quartets and gardening. Philip Skinner, head of Athens station, drops in on Neil to tell him that the KGB is out in force, looking to "target" delegates with nubile bodies, photos, and blackmail.
Neil is therefore immediately suspicious when an exotic-looking lady named Christina Stratos strikes up an acquaintance with him near the swimming pool. He decides to play along to keep her away from the other delegates. While inviting him to an authentic Greek dinner that evening, she offers him a cigarette over drinks, and he decides that one wouldn't hurt-but it does. The waiter brings him a coaster. Written on the back is "please forward £10 by return", and he looks up to see Peele and Wellingham grinning from the terrace! He had bet each of them £5 on the plane that he'd last 24 hours without a smoke.
In the Ops Room, Willie decides on an "unusual approach" to get Mike Wallace to Sikhumi. Instead of bringing him across the border from Istanbul into an area where the Russians are sure to be on alert, he decides to have him fly to Moscow, then to Krasnodar, and rent a car for the drive to Sikhumi under cover as a French tractor salesman. Jeff Ross doesn't like it one bit for reasons that will soon become apparent, but he has no say in the matter. Later, while Mike is en route to Russia with a set of false papers for Cheever, Willie notices that the description given SIS by Ross does not fit Cheever! However, by this time Ross is out of contact. "C" says to Willie, "In the words of the prophet, Caine, we've been suckered." Meanwhile, Mike has been waved through the roadblocks unmolested.
When Mike gets to the bolt-hole he picks up Cheever's gun and trains it on him, having noticed that the description was wrong. Cheever realizes that CIA wanted Mike to make a "dummy run" from the south (the reason Ross was so angry) and had another man standing by to run as soon as Wallace was caught. If he were caught, they'd be looking for a man with an incorrect description from Mike's false papers-but if he got through the clothes he was carrying would have fit Cheever. As Cheever says, "let's just say your getting here is a bonus." At the roadblock on the way back Mike hands a soldier the "wrong" envelope of papers -containing some nude "girlie-photos" and acts the part of the embarrassed Frenchman. Amid gales of laughter, the soldiers wave him and Cheever through-exactly what Willie intended when he gave Mike the photos.
Back in Rhodes, after dinner Christina invites Neil up to her room. He tells her the game is up, and she "targeted" the wrong man. Later comes the punch line-Skinner tells Neil that Christina is a "white hat"-a member of the Greek Intelligence Service who came to Rhodes to forget a nasty divorce-Neil has blown a risk-free evening of bliss by being too clever! Ah well, at least he has his cigarettes back...
Rio Fanning as Bob Cheever
Philip Bond as Sir Roderick Hives
David Horovitch as Philip Skinner
Brigitte Kahn as Christina Stratos
17.
"My Name Is Anna Wiseman"
Written by Gidley Wheeler
Produced by Michael Ferguson
Directed by Michael Ferguson
First Broadcast Date (UK): June 30, 1980
"C" is heading to Washington for a high level
conference on intelligence strategies for the Eighties, and has gotten input from all the
SIS directors. Burnside's submission - a paper on human rights and support for the
dissident movement in the USSR - is not being taken too seriously by "C" and
Deputy Chief Peele. However, Neil believes (prophetically, perhaps) that this is a
potential Achilles heel in the Soviet system, which he feels can be exploited to destroy
Communism from within.
On the day of "C"'s departure Neil is contacted by Anna Wiseman, who has secretly prepared herself -with Neil's help- to be a "sleeper" agent. A former member of the SIS Intelligence directorate, she began this plan six years previously by having an affair with Peele's predecessor to get herself sacked from SIS. Her qualifications and experience have gotten her into a top civilian post at NATO in Brussels, where she has convinced Fyodor Solodovnikov, a retiring Russian diplomat, that she is in love with him and is willing to come over.
Neil explains his ideas to Willie, but since "C" has gone to the USA Peele must make the decision, and tentatively approves it as operation "Early Hyacinth". At Willie's suggestion, Neil has told Peele that the aim is subornment - get Anna into the KGB "finishing school" where she can influence some minds in the right direction. However, she needs a "meal ticket" and Peele must consider whether to allow her to steal an essentially useless but classified NATO document.
The real, secret agenda is somewhat different. Wiseman, a Jewish WWII orphan whose specialty is human rights and dissidents in the USSR, has cancer and only has a year to live. She's going over knowing full well that her cover's been blown by Edward Tyler while he was doubling. She wants to speak out at an inevitable show trial and call attention to human rights and the dissident movement. Unfortunately, the next morning Peele, unwilling to sanction the theft and mindful of the political consequences of the defection, orders Neil to cancel the op. Disappointed, he goes to Brussels to tell Anna, who says she's going anyway-orders be damned. Neil, having passed on the message, tacitly approves.
Without a "meal ticket", something must be done to make the defection look real. Neil's strategy is to have Mike Wallace-who's officially got the weekend off to attend his sister's wedding-go to Brussels to create a sensation around the event. He's to ransack Anna's apartment, and put a bullet through her shoulder as she meets Fyodor. Mike's not happy about the job but does it professionally and perfectly anyway-just like James Bond in "The Living Daylights". The parallels to "The Living Daylights", although unintentional, are striking - Mike even carries his silenced rifle in a cello case!
After Anna is gone, Neil assures "C" and Peele that SIS had nothing to do with the defection or the events surrounding it, and hands them a cassette tape which Anna had made, saying, "it could be used to our advantage-it's an impressive document. "C" cues up the tape as Burnside leaves, and the personal statement, which upbraids the Soviets for their human rights offences and cautions the West not to undervalue the freedom it enjoys, plays over the end credits.
Carol Gillies as Anna Wiseman
Guy Deghy as Fyodor Solodovnikov
18. "Sometimes We Play Dirty Too"
Written by Arden Winch
Produced by Michael Ferguson
Directed by Peter Cregeen
First Broadcast Date (UK): July 7, 1980
Neil is concerned because one Robert Banks, manager of
Anglo-Consolidated Instruments in Prague, has been reported dead in a car accident;
apparently, his car struck a telephone kiosk at 2 A.M. Banks was a top source for the
Joint Intelligence Bureau. The Czechs are making no attempts to claim Banks was driving
drunk, something they could credibly have done since he was known to be heading home from
a party. They must have at least suspected his espionage, yet they're being unnaturally
cooperative in flying the body back to England. They're not even asking for payment for
the smashed kiosk!
Willie is sent to Prague where, posing as an old friend of Banks, he speaks to the ACI employee who identified the body, and also had thrown the party. He says Banks had left at midnight. The face, having gone through the car's windscreen, was unrecognizable and he was identified only by his clothing. Back home Burnside is even more suspicious-why did it take Banks two hours to drive the five miles to the scene of the accident? He sends Mike to try to make contact with Banks' wife, Irene, who had flown back to England to put their two daughters into school for the new term. During a secret autopsy on Banks, the coroner remarks on the tragic death of one so young- "certainly less than 30". But Banks is 52.
Willie strikes up a friendship with Banks' secretary, Penelope. Over dinner he learns that Banks has a beautiful mistress named Maruschka Horokova, about whom Mrs. Banks knows. Now knowing that Banks' death was faked for some reason, Burnside goes to see Mrs. Irene Banks, posing as an ACI executive. She calmly tells him of Maruschka and even hands him some pictures of Maruschka and Banks together. Jeff Ross tells Burnside that Maruschka is actually ten years older than she pretends to be, and works for the Czech secret police. Specializing in the baiting of "honey traps", she's been the undoing of a number of Western military and government officials. During a second date, Penelope tells Willie that Banks had a second flat for entertaining VIPs that he never used except for meeting Maruschka (the VIPs opt for hotels). A plan comes together, and Burnside places a priority call to the SIS photographic lab.
Willie finds and confronts Banks in his "love nest" alone. Naively believing that he and Maruschka will live happily ever after in the Soviet Bloc, he's self-assured and almost condescending to Willie until Willie takes out the "dirty pictures" (concocted with the help of Mrs. Banks' photos). The pictures "show" Maruschka in compromising positions with the men whose careers she ruined. Banks, broken-hearted, returns to London with Willie.
Michael Sheard as Dr. Crabbe
Jean Rimmer as Irene Banks
Derek Godfrey as Robert Banks
Aimee Delamain as Penelope
19.
"Who Needs Enemies"
Written by Gidley Wheeler
Produced by Michael Ferguson
Directed by Peter Cregeen
First Broadcast Date (UK): July 14, 1980
Burnside and new D-INT Paul Dalgetty (a smarmy old school-tie
type who covets being D-OPS) are discussing a problem with Peele. Madrid Head of Station
Cliff Underwood has apparently committed suicide, and Burnside wants to investigate. His
wife Maggie has come home to find that he's drowned himself first in whisky, then in his
swimming pool, leaving a cryptic note: "YOU KNOW WHY". He wasn't working on
anything momentous, but was trying to "turn" a Russian military attaché named
Pachenko at the Embassy - certainly not enough to get him "hit". Caine will be
assigned to investigate as acting Head of Station. When Burnside leaves, Dalgetty lingers
behind to show Peele what is apparently a page from the CIA "Octopus" computer
in Langley, given to Underwood by Pachenko as a token of good faith and forwarded to
Dalgetty. It's an assessment of SIS written by Jeff Ross, and its assessment of Neil is
particularly damning:
BURNSIDE, NEIL. Director of operations. An officer whose tendency to play a one-man band is causing friction and distrust within the corridors of the Secret Intelligence Service.
This is all Peele needs to try to convince "C" to give Neil the push as D-OPS in favor of Dalgetty, bolstering his case with the Medical Officer's offhanded and vague diagnosis of stress. "C" doesn't like Neil himself, but admits that his combination of expertise in the field and on international affairs would make him hard to replace.
However, even Wellingham is surprisingly sympathetic-Neil's abrasiveness is playing on more than a few nerves, including Willie, who's angry that Neil has been making Marianne work late enough to spoil their dates! "C" somewhat reluctantly agrees, and Neil is informed that he's being "promoted" - to Head of Madrid Station. This is, however, a "sideways" promotion - Madrid is not considered an important foreign station as are Bonn or Hong Kong (where "C" and Peele had both respectively served). "C", Peele, and Dalgetty seem to have wrapped it all up very nicely.
In Madrid, Station No. 2 Nick Pearson alludes to the "Octopus" printout and the fact that it went to London in the diplomatic bag.
Depressed, Burnside drowns his sorrows in Coca-Cola at a pub (he still won't drink!) and goes walking around London for hours on end. Around 3 A.M. he's beaten up by a gang of young punks in Leicester Square and lands in St. Thomas' Hospital with a concussion and general bruising. Lady Jean Wellingham visits him and tries to talk him into considering a reconciliation with Belinda. It goes in one ear and out the other. Mike comes in and reports on the office situation, including Dalgetty's imminent succession as D-OPS. Among other things, Dalgetty has recalled Willie from Madrid. Shortly after Mike leaves, Neil checks himself out of the hospital and takes a taxi to SIS headquarters.
Willie meets Burnside in his office with a surprise - the other page of the "Octopus" printout from Pachenko. This page contains the reason for Underwood's suicide. It alleges that Maggie Underwood had been having numerous lesbian affairs over the last ten years. Apparently, Cliff had deliberately "lost" this page behind a filing cabinet drawer. Willie tells Neil that the other half is somewhere in SIS Headquarters, and asks Neil if he's going to fight this power play. Neil says, "until now I had nothing to fight it with".
He confronts Dalgetty and demands to see the paper-his right as an SIS director, a right Dalgetty and Peele have violated. Dalgetty visibly squirms before admitting that Peele has it. Peele is reluctant until Burnside shows his half. After reading the Burnside entry, Neil heads for Grosvenor Square to see Jeff. After Neil accuses him of writing the damning assessments, Ross violates CIA security by giving Neil a copy of the real document, which simply praises Underwood as a knowledgeable, thoroughly professional officer and devoted family man-period. The real Burnside assessment:
BURNSIDE, NEIL. Director of operations. An ambitious officer whose dedication and ruthlessness have won him respect rather than popularity. Disliked by the Chief of SIS for his short-cut methods, he is nevertheless one of the mainstays of the organization, which would be seriously weakened by his departure.
Dragging on his cigarette, Jeff succinctly says, "You've been set up, Neil - you and the whole of SIS with you." Burnside shows the real document to "C" and a suitably chastened Peele. The whole thing was a KGB disinformation op. Pachenko, a phony double, passed the forged printout to Underwood in the knowledge that it would cause ripples at SIS - and it nearly worked. It cost SIS a first-rate station chief, damaged morale, and nearly toppled a supremely effective, if irascible, Director of Operations! Peele says lamely, "who needs enemies when you've got computers." "C", having found a new respect for Burnside, offers to let him stay on as D-OPS, and Neil accepts.
Getting out of the lift, Burnside passes Dalgetty, who has been summoned by "C". He looks like a man on his way to be horsewhipped, and indeed he figuratively will be - for both his own deviousness and for falling hook, line and sinker for the KGB ploy.
David Robb as Paul Dalgetty
Harry Webster as Dr. O'Toole
John Eastham as Nick Pearson
Lola Young as Ward Sister
Edith Macarthur as Lady Wellingham
20.
"Opposite Numbers"
Written by Ian Mackintosh
Produced by Michael Ferguson
Directed by Peter Cregeen
First Broadcast Date (UK): July 28, 1980
SALT negotiations are under way in Malta, and the U.K.
contingent includes Sir Geoffrey Wellingham, a passionate believer in SALT, Deputy-Chief
Peele, and (for security) Sandbaggers Willie Caine and Mike Wallace. Burnside is every bit
as opposed to the arms treaty as his former father-in-law is an advocate of it. He feels
that the Russians will use the goodwill from the talks to hoodwink the West into weakening
their defenses while they continue secretly building weapons of mass destruction, and Neil
would like nothing better than to scuttle the conference. It is a minority viewpoint.
"C" is also a believer in SALT.
Willie gets a note shoved into his hand by a KGB major named Yuri Filatov. Filatov has been doubling for SIS for over a decade and now wants to come over, and says he will only talk to Burnside. "C" allows him to go to Malta, but tells him to be discreet, and in particular to do nothing that will even remotely endanger the talks. SIS would prefer that Filatov stay in place. But Burnside feels he's just been handed a golden opportunity to scuttle the conference. He tells Filatov to say that his nerve is going and he's under suspicion, and returns to tell "C" that the lift can't wait. But "C" and Wellingham are determined that it must wait - great progress is being made at the tables. If SIS lifts Filatov, the Russians will denounce it as a kidnapping and pull out of the talks.
Having returned to Malta, Neil tells Len Shepard - now Head of Malta Station - to stash Filatov in a safe-house and for Len, Willie and Mike to take turns guarding him. He visits KGB Deputy Director Nikolai Sarkisian in his hotel room and falsely informs him that Filatov is on his way to London. Sarkisian visits his "opposite number", Peele, and tells him that the peoples of the world will condemn Britain for causing the talks to collapse. Peele asks "who is Filatov?" Sarkisian, genuinely surprised, enlightens him.
Wellingham and Peele, incensed, confront Burnside and the Sandbaggers with their knowledge. Wellingham is more determined than ever that the talks must continue - the head Russian negotiator has committed a major mistake by being caught in a lie about ICBM statistics and is probably ticketed for Siberia when he gets home. Willie and Mike, stonewalling, claim ignorance, and Burnside lies outright, saying that the Russians are now trying to manufacture an excuse to pull out. Willie, Mike and Neil have all put their careers on the line now.
But Len Shepard has already told Neil that he cannot afford to take that risk. Peele secretly visits Len at home and says that he wants to protect both Sandbaggers and Neil. Len truthfully divulges the location of the safe-house, which the Russians raid and take back Filatov. Immediately after they leave, Peele comes in and reads Willie and Neil the riot act. Later, Wellingham tells Neil in a roundabout way that he's winking a blind eye yet again to one of Neil's treacherous games. He also tells Neil straight out that he was luckier than he deserved, and that Peele is not the fool they've always taken him for. Indeed he isn't - he has more than risen to this occasion.
Deprived of one excuse, Neil thinks the Russians will manufacture another by "hitting" one of their own delegation - most likely the negotiator who screwed up. He orders Willie and Mike to make sure it doesn't happen - now the Sandbaggers have to protect the Russians from the KGB! Neil heads for the airport, and Willie and Mike speed to the conference facility. When they get there, Mike spots Filatov in the lead limousine, and realizes HE is to be the intended sacrifice! Willie sees the sniper on a nearby rooftop. The Russians will get their excuse and kill their traitor all at once.
Willie dashes forward as Filatov exits the car - and takes the bullet intended for the KGB man, crashing to the sidewalk covered in blood as Mike frantically checks him for signs of life.
In the final shot of this last episode, we hear Burnside being paged at the Malta airport as his plane takes off.
Thus ends the saga of "The Sandbaggers". Don't you just hate loose ends? It's a real pity that the series was not continued, as it leaves us with two huge unanswered questions and their possible ramifications.
As mentioned in "The Sandbaggers FAQ" by Micky DuPree, there were some rumors bandied about that would have had Willie surviving in a variety of scenarios - possibly even returning as a wheelchair-bound D-OPS while Burnside went back into the field as a Sandbagger.
Frank Moorey as Yuri Filatov
Larry Hoodekoff as Nikolai Sarkisyan
John Alkin as Len Shepard
David Robb as Paul Dalgetty
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