512 – The Invisible Man – A Man of Influence & Eyes Only

We cover two episodes for the price of one as John and Eugene look at A Man of Influence a story of psychic chicanery and Eyes Only in which the fabulous Barbara Anderson gets in trouble because she’s got a good memory. amzn_assoc_placement = "adunit0"; amzn_assoc_tracking_id = "fusionpatrol-20"; amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; amzn_assoc_marketplace = "amazon"; amzn_assoc_region = "US"; amzn_assoc_default_search_phrase = "invisible man david mccallum"; amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; amzn_assoc_linkid = "3b04df41558b676760c2d13410bf37be"; amzn_assoc_design = "in_content"; amzn_assoc_title = "Invisible Man"; Man of Influence Synopsis: Senator Hanover visits the California mansion of Ernest Sheed, psychic.  At a seance, he contacts the Senator’s late wife, Margaret who tells him that, with the ability to see what is beyond the veil of the future, the Senator’s current project is doomed to failure and he must change course. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] Unfortunately for the United States, this plan is a bill to invest heavily in alternative energy sources.  It had a comfortable majority in the Senate, but now passage seems uncertain.  The Energy Department thinks that Sheed is a fraud in the service of an unknown entity that has a vested interest in traditional energy sources.  Maybe domestic, maybe foreign.  The Energy Department wants the Klae Resource to find out the truth about Sheed. Easy enough, says Dan, I’m the Invisible Man, I’ll go to Sheed’s house, slip in, look around, find out his secrets and if he’s a fraud and report back. No, wait, that’s not his plan.  His plan is to have his wife masquerade as the Senator’s estranged daughter, who just happens to have died a few days earlier in the Andes, ask Sheed to speak to her mother and, when the mother “recognizes” her as her genuine daughter, they’ll have proof its a fake. Just one problem: the “ghost” of Margaret Hanover doesn’t recognize the imposter and, to make matters worse, the ghost of the recently deceased daughter shows up and denounces her.  Oops.  Thinking fast, Kate says they’re really from the American Center for Psychic Research and that Sheed may be eligible for a $100,000 prize for proving the existence of life after death.  Sheed is skeptical.  He doesn’t think Kate and Dan are researchers because usually psychic researchers are practitioners themselves. Kate arranges a demonstration of telekinesis after she has Dan “leave the room” wink wink.  Sheed is impressed, and he invites them back for the next seance with the Senator. He may be impressed, but he’s not fooled.  He knows the Westins work for the Klae Corporation and that they have a very impressive asset known as the Klae Resource.  They are dangerous and need to be dead. On their way home, Williams, Sheed’s assistant, tries to kill them by running them off the road.  When that fails, later, he approaches their car, parked on the street, and sabotages the brakes.  Dan sees him and, invisible, watches what Williams does, later reversing the sabotage. Sheed and Williams are surprised when Kate and Dan turn up at the seance, but Dan can’t stay.  He’s taking the car to the garage – there’s a problem with the brakes he needs to get fixed.  After he leaves, Dan drives the car off a cliff, faking his own death. For some unknown reason, word of the accident finds its way back to Kate at Sheed’s place, and the entire entourage go to visit the scene of the accident.  Dan, invisible, catches a ride back with them to the mansion, where Kate has requested that Sheed contact Dan.  He is reluctant, until the Senator starts to get suspicious. To Sheed’s surprise, Dan’s ghostly voice manifests at the seance and accused him of being a fake and having murdered him.  Dan exposes the ghost projector to the Senator, then recites nursery rhymes at Sheed until he confesses to the murder. Soon thereafter, Dan turns up alive.  It’s a miracle! Eyes Only Synopsis: The Director of the NSA comes to visit the Klae Corporation.  They need help from the Klae Resource and they need it now.  The Director’s highly-trusted and highly-qualified personal assistant, Paula Simon is a traitor, leaking secrets to the enemy.  They just don’t know how.  Like everyone she is checked for documents, cameras and recording devices when she enters and leaves work everyday, and yet… not a hint that she’s sneaking things out.  An agent assigned to follow her was killed on a busy public street mysterious without a witness. Their plan: Kate will pretend to be an applicant for the job for the Director’s Personal Assistant’s Personal Assistant.  This will give her the opportunity to walk Dan into the NSA building and he’ll follow Paula.  This he does. She is fed a fake document which she must review, which Dan also reviews over her shoulder.  Then he follows her.  First she visits lounge singer Tony Bernard.  They’re in love, and she wants to get out of this dirty game.  He does too, but his boss, “The Contractor” is unlikely to be willing.  Paula demands that he barter with the secret document she just saw.  She’ll turn it over and they’re out. Back at her apartment, Paula sits down at a typewriter and recreates the Eyes Only secret document verbatim using her photographic memory.  The Klae Resource, having revealed how she does it, turns the info over the Director of the NSA.  Job done. Except… the next morning, Tony visits Jack Pierson, the meanest columnist in Washington.  Pierson is Tony’s go-between to The Contractor.  He demands that he pass along the ultimatum.  Later, Tony is almost killed by guns shots on a busy, crowded street.  He flees. They see this as an opportunity to find out who is behind this ring.  While Dan reviews the news footage of the shooting, Kate returns to Paula, again posing as an interviewee and hops to get into Paula’s confidence.  It doesn’t take much.  Paula already knows about the link to Kate and the Klae Corporation and, potentially, the Kale Resource, so she confides in her.  She wants to be arrested and protected. Dan figures out that there are construction workers at both the mystery murder scenes, so he investigate the contractor, who turns out to be The Contractor.  He learns that they commit the murders with a gun disguised as a surveyor’s theodolite.  The gunshot sounds being disguised by the sound of a jackhammer.  They know Paula is betraying them and plan to kill her, but before he can warn anyone, he’s locked onto a job site, patrolled by a guard dog that really doesn’t like him and then locked inside the foreman’s shack.  Can he escape in time to save Paula’s like. Answer: Yes he can, and the day is saved. [/expand]