THE SANDBAGGERS "Is Your Journey Really Necessary?" 1978
The SANDBAGGERS was a UK series set during the Cold War. The series follows a small unit of the SIS, which deals with various intelligence gathering problems. (Or eliminating said problems) The cast includes Roy Marsden, Ray Lonnen, David Glyder, Liz Bennett, Richard Vernon, Bob Sherman and Jerome Willis. The series ran for 20 episodes between 1978 and 1980.This is the third episode of the production run.
Roy Marsden is in charge of a covert action section of the UK Secret Service, the SIS.
This one starts with an SIS operation that goes terribly wrong. Marsden has had one of his "Sandbaggers" on a covert mission in the Eastern Bloc as a favour to the CIA. The agent, David Glyder has been tumbled by the Reds and cornered just short of the border. There is no way he can reach safety. Marsden sends out the order to another agent who is set up just inside the west. He uses a sniper rifle and terminates Glyder. The man had too much valuable information that could not fall to the Soviets.
This causes more than a few heads further up the chain of command to wag. Marsden will be lucky if he keeps his job. At the same time, info has arrived that a diplomat at the Paris embassy is a possible blackmail target of the Reds. The man is in a gay romance with a French citizen. The rub here is that the diplomat is the brother of an up and coming opposition candidate for UK Prime Minister.
Further muddying the waters for Marsden is the agent, Steve Grives, who had been the man ordered to kill his fellow agent, wants to quit the unit. Marsden, through some fast footwork manages to keep his job. Now he must figure out how to deal with the Paris problem, as well as keep Grives in play as an agent.
Marsden is ordered to get photos etc of the diplomat in Paris. As for Grives, it seems that the man wants to get married and wants a safer job. Marsden has the security boys do a background check on Grives' girl. Marsden then pays a call on the woman, and "hints" he will manufacture evidence etc of her having an affair and other shady things if she does not stop seeing Grives.
The photos taken in Paris by the SIS are used, not against the diplomat, but against his brother, the up and coming leader of the government opposition party. Agent Grives's girl takes herself out of the picture with a bottle of Scotch and several handfuls of pills. It turns out to be a moot point though, as Grives is killed in a car crash the same day.
This is a much better episode than I am making it sound like.
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