"The Infiltrators"
(Original air date 02/06/77)
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Steve goes undercover as an amateur boxing champion to infiltrate a group
planning to steal NASA secret documents
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Writer: Sam Ross
Director: Phil Bondelli
Following a boxing training session at the gym, Steve returns to the OSI with Oscar to be briefed on his next mission, which is to pose as an amateur boxer in order to infiltrate a group of foreign athletes suspected of plotting the assassination of the head of the Chinese Trade Commission due to arrive in Washington in forty-eight hours. With each tournament that booker Boris Retski organises, one member of the team suddenly vanishes, the latest being Bavarian gymnast Elsa Rebinveich. It is believed that she will be joined by another member of the boxing team to execute the plan.
To succeed in getting Steve enrolled in the tournament they must first do away with the current champion, George Mason. (Pervis Atkins)
In Rudy’s lab, everything is set for the fake examination. Having switched the ordinary aluminium medical chart, iron stool and twenty-pound barbell with solid lead, Steve and Rudy trick the champ into believing that his strength is waning. The good doctor suggests taking a short vacation to replenish his energy.
After saving a boxer from being crushed by a rack of barbells, Steve meets with Boris Retski (Michael Conrad) and his assistant Lena Bannister. (Yvonne Craig) Boris scoffs at Oscar’s choice of replacement for Mason, but smitten Lena is convinced Steve can pull his weight in the ring and signs him on the spot.
Back at the OSI, Oscar and Steve are grasping at straws as to who, what, where, when and how. In order to speed up the process, Oscar suggests that Steve pay court to Lena to try to extract information out of her.
Steve and Lena share an intimate dinner in her hotel room, during which he manages to catch a glimpse at personal notes about the Chinese Trade Commission coinciding with the tournament’s opening night.
Lena suspects Steve Miller to be an undercover agent. She won’t have him nosing around and risk wreaking havoc with their plan, and therefore asks her henchman Duclaire (Cliff Carnell) to dispose of him in an ‘accident’. She proposes a bar-room brawl involving Steve's new friend, boxer Tollombe. (Harold Sylvester)
The next day at the gym, Tollombe’s manager (Tony Burton) comes to Boris with the news that his boy is getting drunk at the local bar for no reason whatsoever.
When Steve offers to pick him up he runs into three hired thugs that he quickly subdues, bionic style, by twisting a metal bar around them.
Lena informs her boxing champ Cooper (Joe Kapp) that their attempt at the bar failed. It is imperative that Steve Miller be kept from getting under foot before the match on Saturday. Although Cooper is confident he’ll have Steve KOed in the first round, Lean leans in favour of Duclaire’s radical method of disposal.
In the men’s locker room, Duclaire is poised ready to stab Steve when Tollombe shows up unexpectedly, thus saving his friend’s life. He shares his suspicion that he might have been drugged at the bar but the motive still eludes him.
Back at the gym, Steve finds it odd that four boxers should repeatedly train on an old Japanese technique, which consists of lifting and moving two tons worth of weights. He suggests programming the OSI computer to come up with an object that falls into that weight range, ensuring that the data includes the time and place so as to narrow down the search.
While Oscar and his programmer (Stuart Nisbet) work at finding the object in question, Lena meets with Cooper before the boxing match to explain how she intends to neutralize his opponent. She will drop a drug into his washing water, which will be absorbed by the pores and render him unconscious within minutes. When he’s down her men will carry him away in an ambulance and dispose of him quietly.
Soon after Lena puts her plan into effect, Steve goes down for the count.
Steve’s trainer Wally (Jerry Quarry), OSI inside man, finds it peculiar that the two medical orderlies (Curtis Credei & Jim Raymond) should choose to carry Steve to the ambulance prior to giving him an examination. He reports the incident to Oscar. Time is running out to solve the mystery.
Later on, Cooper and Duclaire pose as cleaning men to gain access to a high-security building. After knocking out the guard (Jimmy Joyce) the two slip into the back entrance with Lena and gymnast Elsa Rebinveich. They tread circumspectly to a room where sits a two-ton metal box containing NASA files on a top-secret project. Unable to switch off the security system from outside, Elsa is asked to crawl through the ventilation shaft to open the doors from inside. There, our team gets ready to steal the coveted item.
In the ambulance, Steve slowly regains his senses. He has no trouble overpowering his captors before stealing the vehicle to return to the boxing ring. On the way he contacts Oscar who fills him in on the mysterious object that is heavily guarded at the Bartow Building. Apparently the plan never involved the Trade Commission. It was a ploy designed to throw them off the track.
Steve drives to the building in question. After freeing the guard he gains access inside with the key.
He goes to the room where he kicks the door open. Surprised by the jerky entrance, the men send the two-ton box rolling down the hall towards Steve who dodges out of the way as it slams into the wall, continuing its course to the underground parking lot where Steve manages to veer it round towards the thieves.
As if on cue, Oscar and his men swarm the place to apprehend the gang.
Steve plays a joke on his boss by asking him to help wheel the box back to its original place, task that Oscar is unable to perform for obvious reasons.
Back at the OSI, a shamefaced Steve confesses to the prank that he and Rudy pulled on Mason in order to take his place. The champion has no hard feelings for the forced hiatus allowed him to take an overdue vacation with his wife. Moreover Boris has offered him a contract to participate in future tournaments.
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