"Deadly Countdown" Part 2
(Original air date 10/02/77)
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Steve helps a friend clear his name after a crooked organisation
impels him to sabotage a rocket launch
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Writer: Gregory S. Dinallo
Director: Cliff Bole
Grievously injured in the rocket explosion, Steve is rushed to the hospital where Rudy diagnoses a severe concussion. He shares with Oscar his fear of a possible haematoma forming in the brain as a result of the head trauma. Time will tell
Oscar meets with Leah coming out of the elevator. Too distraught to recall the events prior to the incident, she insists that Oscar postpone his questioning till after she visits with Steve.
A feverish Steve regains consciousness long enough to learn of a second launch scheduled in forty-eight hours, and that hopefully his condition will improve by then. It is imperative for him to take part in the expedition seeing him how he is the only astronaut trained for this special mission.
Meanwhile, McGrath meets with Webster at a marina to plead for his daughter’s release, but Webster insists on keeping the girl a while longer to ensure her father’s silence in the investigation of the explosion.
Powerful twinges of conscience prod McGrath to confide in Steve. However the heavily sedated patient drifts off to sleep halfway during the confession.
Steve’s subconscious registered every word of McGrath’s confession. Parts of that conversation resurface in annoying sounds that spur the dazed man out of bed to get his clothes on. He then staggers out of the hospital to go to the launch site and investigate.
Steve’s disappearance has Oscar and Leah worried sick, more so when Rudy explains that Steve is likely to aggravate his condition if he keeps fighting off the sedative. Leah gets an inkling of where her partner might have gone. She drives to the launch site where she finds Steve at the grip of a powerful dizzy spell. He starts babbling about McGrath being responsible for the incident. Before she can convince him to follow her back to the hospital he collapses.
Nearly forty-eight hours later Steve is given a clean bill of health. Still gnawing at him is the puzzling mystery behind the explosion. Oscar explains that in his delirium Steve kept alluding to McGrath as the primary suspect. Suspicious, Steve drives over to NASA’s launch complex where he is troubled to learn that McGrath ordered the mission’s abortion twelve seconds before it was deemed absolutely necessary, as though he was privy to a malfunction. He then drops by his friend’s house to confront him with the damaging evidence.
McGrath breaks down and confesses to being the author of the sabotage, stating that his daughter’s life was at stake.
Later, McGrath positively identifies Webster as the contact man. As a security measure, Oscar removes him from his duties as mission director but Steve objects to his boss’s decision for it might do more harm than good. Instead he proposes to tail McGrath, convinced that he will eventually lead him to Melissa.
Realizing that he’s being followed, Webster asks his right-hand man Montez (Larry Duran) to get annoying Austin off his tail. He shows up on the road to provoke an accident. Steve swerves to avoid the collision and ends up in the canal.
The two men are satisfied by the result. Believing that Austin has drowned they drive away. However Steve is unscathed and is now following them at a safe distance.
As they get Melissa out of the shack, Steve springs on the men and puts them out of commission. Unfortunately Webster manages to escape.
Webster reports to Shanks about Austin and Melissa. He now worries that the girl can identify him. Shanks assures him that everything is proceeding accordingly and that tomorrow at this time they will be in Morocco where no one will find them
On the day of the launch, NASA beefs up security in and around the launch platform while Shanks and Beck get ready to take control of the rocket’s instruments.
All systems are go. The two astronauts get aboard the capsule. Halfway during the countdown Steve’s bionic eye goes awry. While he suspects the instruments are being reprogrammed by an unknown source he urges Oscar to find the origin of that electromagnetic emission. They try to stop the countdown but the controls no longer respond to command.
Once again the two astronauts evacuate the capsule. Leading in front Steve manages to cross the gangway before it is removed, but unfortunately Leah gets trapped on the other side.
Steve hops onboard a waiting helicopter ready to fly him to the exact coordinates where the EM source was located, Shanks’s laboratory.
He jumps onto the premises and after hurling the guard into the pool, he yanks the power cable out of the wall and apprehends the bad guys.
Hours later, Steve and Leah are finally launched into outer space.
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