(The viewer, at this point, thinks that not only has the R gotten away and the mission has failed, but also that Barney and Willy are dead.)
The R reaches a military picket shack, where several of his khaki-clad militiamen are lounging about. The R stumbles toward them. At the sight of him, the militiamen raise their rifles alarmingly. "It's me," the R pants. "Ernesto. Your leader, Ernest Guardia. Don't you recognize me?" Their faces remain hostile and cold, and then one of them fires. The R drops into safety behind a rock, and, with his silencer-equipped pistol, kills the several militiamen. All at once there is silence. The R alone remains alive.
Getting to his feet, he gaspingly staggers toward the picket shack, numbed by the impossible: his own militiamen firing at him. Inside the shack he discovers current newspapers and a radio receiver (but not a transmitter). After examining the newspapers and listening to the radio, he discovers that, during his absence, two of his demileaders have tried to seize power; the country is now split into two warring camps, and what is worse, the two adversaries have released hitherto secret papers that incriminate the R -- this along the lines of the de-Stalinization in the USSR after Stalin's death.
What can he do? Even though the MI team failed, he has been deposed anyhow, during his absence. The incriminating papers that were released tell how, while in the hills, the R worked with CIA agents, inasmuch as that at that time the R had not come out for a "people's democracy" along Marxist, pro-China lines.
Obligingly, a small but high-speed plane lands in the rustic field behind the picket shack; the pilot gets out of his craft and saunters toward the shack, carrying various objects of a military nature. The R shoots him; the pilot obligingly falls to the ground, whereupon the R scuttles across the field and into the plane. In a moment he is airborne -- and heading for the United States. Then the camera returns to the field, where the "dead" pilot lies; he is now getting leisurely to his feet to watch the plane depart, as are the "dead" militiamen. They grin. What does all this mean?
All this means that the R fell for a fraud within a fraud. The newspapers that he found in the picket shack were fakes. So was the radio broadcast that he heard: Barney did that, and Barney is very much alive. The team intended that the R "escape," that he "shoot" Willy and "electrocute" Barney, then flee the scene and make his way to the fake picket shack. The R did not in actuality leave the fake world and reenter the real world; no one seized power during his absence; there is no civil war; no incriminating documents were released; the "militiamen" and the pilot were spurious, and they did not die any more than Willy died; the gun, with its effective silencer, fired no bullets -- no wonder the silencer was so effective! And now he is on his way to the United States; the MI team did its job: It only appeared to have lost control of the situation for a time... when in actuality everything went exactly as planned. The whole unmasking of the "mental hospital" and the fake newsreel of the R delivering his important speech -- from the very beginning the team intended the R to discover the truth... right down to Rollin's rubber face and the lip-sync. The R was too smart to be fooled by the fakery, and the team knew this from the start. For the mission to work they had to include the R's discovering "everything" and go on from there.
Of course, when he reaches Florida, the R will fairly soon discover the truth -- discover that there has been no seizure of power back home. But by this time the American authorities will have audio- and videotaped the R's formal statement that he is applying for formal sanctuary in the United States, and this will be sufficient to keep him from returning to his own country, for obvious reasons.
"TV Series Idea" (1967)
Location: The gray, foggy landscape of Heaven. "We Are Watching You, Inc.," a small guardian angel organization consisting of Anastasia Kelp, the owner, a Paul Douglas type; Miss Theola Feather, the phone operator, receptionist, and secretary; Morris Nimbleman, the research director; the protagonist, Herb DeWinter, in charge of field operations; Ludlow Orlawsky, sales manager; Fred Engstrom, repairman for the field equipment that Herb uses on his trips back and forth between Earth and Heaven. "We Are Watching You, Inc.," is a small outfit among several giants, but its record of bailing Earthlings out of jams is virtually 100 percent; it's a small but proud, fine old "handcrafted" firm, beset with worries -- namely, that the Government will cancel its franchise due to its smallness (the other guardian angel firms have thousands of field operators, whereas WAWY, Inc., has only DeWinter, who is a slender, good-looking, young, slightly baffled type who seems to fumble things up until the last moment, whereat he miraculously comes through). Additional character: Mr. Vane, the expert from the Government who is ghostly -- his voice booming through an echo chamber -- and somehow always on hand, checking up on them. He has the power to close them for good, and his "audit" is much feared, although admittedly it would be just. Anastasia Kelp is realistic, aware that his small outfit is an anachronism and probably ought to give up, but he can't quite bring himself to resign and fold up tents. Everything at WAWY, Inc., is old-fashioned, even the telephones and wooden counters; it reeks of the early twentieth century, without chrome or gadgets -- except the "magical" advanced electronic superscience gimmicks that the repairman Fred Engstrom provides Herb with at the start of each trip to Earth. Each time the gimmicks differ, according to the assignment. The gimmicks are really spectacular, so that Herb becomes a parody on James Bond with his magic attache case, and when he is operating in the field and the locale is Earth, this is the dominant mood of the drama: a sort of supernatural James Bond type, except well-intentioned and unsophisticated and a bit bungling. When in Heaven, however, at WAWY, Inc., the locale is like an old-fashioned small store, with much personal relatedness between the employees so that they form a bickering, loving small family, with Anastasia Kelp, of course, as the father.
Each episode consists of a different field trip by Herb DeWinter. In each episode a client has come to WAWY, Inc., for help. A relative or loved one still on Earth is in trouble, and the client wants to hire the services of a professional Guardian Angel to bail that person out. Inasmuch as WAWY, Inc., is a small, marginal -- but reputable -- firm, it is bound to get a good many oddballs as clients... and this it does. The loved one or relative on Earth, too, is often wild or kookie, with a wild, kookie mess ensnaring him.
When he has left Heaven and the offices of WAWY, Inc., and has journeyed down to Earth, Herb routinely approaches the beleaguered loved one in this manner: He shows him or her his business card -- he is, of course, wearing a natty New York-style suit of the latest cut -- and says something like, "Mr. Peterson. My name is Herb DeWinter, from We Are Watching You, Incorporated. Your grandmother Hatte has hired me to look into your situation with an eye toward effectively bringing about a positive solution," etc. In other words, he lays it on the line; the beleaguered loved one knows who is assisting him and why. Double takes are as brief as possible; then the two of them get down to brass tacks, and the beleaguered loved one accepts Herb from then as he would accept any expert help proffered him in his dilemma. The shortness of the double takes can be explained by the urgent peril surrounding the beleaguered loved one; he can't afford to be skeptical, not at a time like this.
The drama of each episode consists of Herb DeWinter's efforts to collaborate with the beleaguered loved one in getting him out of his jam. He always does, but generally he makes it a lot worse before he extricates the victim, and often the victim is faster and brighter than he. Extra humor is supplied by the occasional tough Chicago syndicate-type enemies of the victim who also unhesitatingly accept Herb for what he is; for instance, he is sapped, knocked out, and his wallet examined by gunsels of the mobster. Mr. Big, the head of the mob, as did the victim, does very little double taking; he, too, accepts Herb at face value, but of course doubts cynically if Herb will be of much use. In addition, Mr. Big compares his electronic gimmicks with the supernatural magic ones that Herb is equipped with, and often Mr. Big's are more advanced (recall that WAWY, Inc., is quite obsolete: and not merely behind the times in Heaven but occasionally -- although not inevitably -- on Earth). Countering this is the occasional appearance of some gimmick rigged up at WAWY by Fred Engstrom, which is so potent as to be miraculous. So it can go either way, depending on the episode. The pendulum swings from miracle to complete bust of Herb's arsenal of wild supernatural gimmicks -- the fact that any gimmick may work spectacularly or be a total dud -- would help keep audience interest, in that the effect of these broad pendulum swings of electronic effectiveness on his part make him almost a superman in some episodes, an idiot in others. In fact, within the same episode there is no telling what the results will be the next time Herb dips into his ever-present attache case; a good deal of suspense can be built up here.