Original subtitles

[KNOCKING ON DOOR]

Yes?

Well?

I checked the entire perimeter around the test area.

- And? - It seems clean, sir.

But in my opinion, security is still inadequate and I--

[INTERCOM BUZZES]

- Yes? MAN: Pardon me, sir.

There's an urgent phone call for Major Graves.

A Mr. Spence.

I can have it transferred over here.

He'll take it there.

Well, how about it, Ted? Do I get more men or don't I?

I'll let you know.

I said, major, I'd let you know.

Graves here.

Where's Vincent? I thought he was supposed to be here.

Relax. You told me yourself he wasn't coming in until tomorrow afternoon.

How can I relax?

Major, how many times do I have to tell you?

I don't like it. Maybe I can't prove it,

but I'm being watched.

This whole place gives me the creeps.

Now, I've already closed your office here.

By tomorrow you can be halfway across the world.

Now, just take it easy. I'll check with you later.

Hey.

Hey, the door is stuck.

Hey!

Hey, out there! The door.

Help, please!

Help me, won't you?

Come on, help me!

Help me with the door! It's stuck!

Help! Help me!

Help me! Get the door open!

[POUNDING ON DOOR]

Help!

Get the door!

Open the door. The door. Please, help me!

Help me!

Help, help, help!

[SPENCE SOBBING]

[KICKS DOOR]

What's going on?

No, please. Please, no, no! Help!

Help me. Help! Help!

[SCREAMING]

NARRATOR: The Invaders.

A Quinn Martin production.

Starring Roy Thinnes as architect David Vincent.

NARRATOR: The invaders,

alien beings from a dying planet.

Their destination: the Earth.

Their purpose: to make it their world.

David Vincent has seen them.

For him, it began one lost night on a lonely country road,

looking for a shortcut that he never found.

It began with a closed, deserted diner

and a man too long without sleep to continue his journey.

It began with the landing of a craft from another galaxy.

Now David Vincent knows that the invaders are here,

that they have taken human form.

Somehow he must convince a disbelieving world

that the nightmare has already begun.

The guest star in tonight's story: William Windom.

And special guest star: Andrew Duggan.

Tonight's episode: "Doomsday, Minus One."

NARRATOR: David Vincent had received an urgent call

from a man he'd never met

to come to a motel he'd never heard of,

in a desert he'd never seen.

But he came because the message spoke of alien invaders.

The man he'd never met had disappeared.

The motel he'd never heard of seemed menacing.

But the desert he'd never seen promised him an answer.

- You're late. - I had some trouble.

- Cigarette? - No, thank you.

I'd rather see your credentials, If you don't mind.

Aren't you being just a little bit suspicious, Vincent?

Spence disappeared, five minutes later you called me.

On top of that, I was tailed here.

- You were what? - I was tailed, major.

All the way from the motel.

You look worried.

Why don't you level with me.

If I did, we'd both end up in a psycho ward.

This is called Greylock Crater. It was made about three months ago.

Made, investigated

and called the result of a small meteor.

Spence doesn't go along with that.

He believes this crater was caused by the crash of a space ship.

He believes that because last week, according to him,

he saw a space ship land not 50 yards from here.

Do you believe him?

My job is security. I have to believe him.

In the first place, he's one of my closest friends

and for a civilian, a very sane man.

In the second place, that space ship was met by a man named Carl Wyeth,

one of the top engineers on our post.

A man directly connected with a major underground atomic test.

A test so big that the Atomic Energy Commission has called us in on it.

We're gonna stage it with them. Now, do you begin to get the point?

Of course, you've told all this to the commanding officer.

I told you I didn't wanna end my days in a psycho ward.

I ran a check on Wyeth. Nothing.

Now, if anything is wrong on this base,

I will need proof.

Hard, cold, irrefutable proof.

Otherwise, I'm not gonna move a single inch.

Well, Vincent.

Do you think you can help me?

You want me to get a job on the base, is that it?

That's why I had Spence call you.

You're supposed to be an authority on these-- These people.

Oh, there won't be any trouble.

Everything's all been arranged.

You just turn up at 1200 hours tomorrow.

Do I use my own name?

Why not? You already used it at the motel. It's too late to change now.

All right, 1200 hours.

Oh, one other thing.

If you get jammed up--

Yeah, I know.

You never heard of me.

What about Spence?

Is he also expendable?

I have men out looking for Spence.

Eight to five, you'll never find him.

Say, buddy, whose car is that?

- Mr. Tomkins' car. Why? -Tomkins?

No reason. Thanks.

Why were you so anxious to see me this morning?

Whatever happened to Charlie Spence?

Spence?

I'm told he's disappeared.

General,

don't you think it's a little childish of you to worry about the fate of one man

when you've agreed to the death of a million?

I told you why I did it.

Tell me again.

Tell me again, general.

Don't push me, Mr. Tomkins.

It wouldn't take much to make me--

Change your mind?

And if you did, general, what chance would you have

to save your precious world?

Spence is dead, general.

Do you understand? He's dead.

Oh, by the way, general,

there is a name I would like to mention to you.

David Vincent.

If he shows up at your post,

I'd appreciate your letting me know about it.

I thought you understood that you were to be on your own.

That's why I asked you to meet me before I reported to the post.

- You'd better have a good reason. - You tell me.

This morning, a man named Tomkins left the Desert Winds Motel

- and drove to the desert. - I'm not interested in any Tomkins.

Well, you should be. He's an alien.

The same one who tried to follow me to the crater yesterday.

Today, I followed him about five miles from here at an adobe ruin.

He met an Army man.

Can you identify him?

No, I couldn't get too close. But he was a general.

His car was marked with a star.

He was well over 6 feet, about 180 pounds.

You're describing General Beaumont.

Who's he?

The commanding officer of this post.

He was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge,

again on the Yalu River in Korea, got every decoration in the book.

I've known him for 20 years. One of the finest men I've ever known.

An hour ago he met an alien.

That is ridiculous.

Can you assure me that the general was on the post at that time?

Of course not, but I can easily check it out.

What if he wasn't?

Then I would be convinced that General Beaumont's business

was both private

and legitimate.

What's the matter, major? You afraid of the truth? Does it scare you?

The truth never scares me, Mr. Vincent.

Just so it is the truth.

Look, you asked me down here to check some things out.

Exactly what shall I do?

A, forget about General Beaumont. I'll handle him.

B, go after your aliens.

Go after Carl Wyeth.

Well, Mr. Vincent, do I make myself clear?

As a civilian employee on this post,

you are forbidden to enter any restricted area.

Yes, sir.

Where would I find the office of Carl Wyeth?

Unfortunately, his office is in a restricted area.

Building C, room 109. Your office is in Building A.

Will there be anything else you wanna know?

- No, thank you. - Good luck.

DAVID: Thank you.

Oh, general, this is Mr. David Vincent,

a new member of our engineering staff.

- General. - Mr. Vincent.

- Something wrong, general? - Oh, no. No, nothing is wrong.

Just for a second there, I thought I'd met that man before.

I've checked over your request for additional security personnel, Rick.

- And? - I put it through channels.

Through channels?

Do you know how long that will take? By the time Washington gets--

You know if anybody else had submitted that request,

I would have rejected it out of hand.

[LAUGHS]

If you don't look out, Rick, this job will turn you into an old lady.

I better be moving along. I'm late for a meeting.

Ted.

I want you to postpone the test.

You want me to do what?

Why? For what reason?

Because I asked you to.

Because you asked me to?

Here lately, major, you've been asking me to do a lot of things

that don't make any sense.

Now, if you have some concrete reason

for turning the defence policies of this country upside down,

I suggest you state it.

I'm listening, major.

I have nothing concrete, sir. But something stinks on this post.

And unless you postpone that test, it will be my job to find out why.

I must be going out of my mind

because I swear I sensed a threat in that.

Now...

come on, Rick, we've known each other too long.

We don't have to fence, to play games.

- If we can't trust each other-- - Can we, general?

Well, Ted?

I'll tell you something.

When my boy died in Korea,

something happened to me. I--

I couldn't think. I couldn't feel.

I was empty.

I thought, for me, it was the end.

And then, you-- You and Ethel and your kids came along...

and helped to fill that void for me.

Try to trust me, Rick.

Forget whatever it is you think you know...

Trust me.

Is Mr. Wyeth in his office?

I'll see.

Mr. Wyeth in there?

Well, there's someone to see him.

Yes, sir.

He's in the machine shop.

You go down to the end of the corridor, where it splits,

take the one that goes to the right. There's a sign.

Okay, thank you.

[DOOR OPENING]

MP: You're supposed to say, "I got lost."

I'm looking for Carl Wyeth.

This is his office, isn't it?

I'm Carl Wyeth and this is my office.

I talked to the guard out front. He said it was all right.

Mr. Vincent was told to go to the machine shop,

instead of which, he came here.

It's funny you know my name, we've never met.

MP: All right, let's get him out of here.

All right. Take me to Major Graves. Let's clear this thing up.

WYETH: Wouldn't it be better, sergeant,

if he were turned over to General Beaumont?

I report to Major Graves, Mr. Wyeth.

My work comes directly under the general's supervision.

- Well, I'm sorry. - If necessary, sergeant,

I'll call the general myself.

As you wish, Mr. Wyeth. Come on.

DAVID: I just wanted to meet Mr. Wyeth.

I realise I broke some rules, but--

There are no buts about military regulations, Mr. Vincent.

I thought you made that clear, major.

GRAVES: So did I, sir.

Well,

Mr. Vincent, you have knowingly breached security regulations.

You're a civilian, I have no power to court-martial you.

However, I am placing you in confinement

and turning your case over to the Department of Justice.

Take him away.

Justice Department.

We're here to pick up a David Vincent.

Identification.

Could you sign this, please?

Thank you.

DAVID: What's this all about? - Department of Justice.

If you please, Mr. Vincent.

[OUTER DOOR OPENING]

[KNOCKING ON DOOR]

You sent for me, sir?

Your leave orders.

Effective 2400 hours tonight.

I think it's in the interest of all parties concerned.

Are you ordering me to leave, Ted?

Well, very well, you were right to bawl me out about that Vincent mix-up.

But there was something I should've told you about him.

Something I am going to tell you

before you turn him over to the justice people.

Two agents picked him up over an hour ago.

They're very efficient.

Yes, very.

What was it you wanted to tell me about him?

It'll keep.

Rick.

Twenty-four hundred hours tonight.

It's taking a long time to get there.

- Just where are you taking me? - Please turn around.

All right, Mr. Vincent, out.

Another disappearance?

You're not going to disappear, Mr. Vincent.

You're going to have an accident.

All right, so you showed me a wrecked car. So what?

What I showed you was a fatal accident.

Nobody in that car could have walked away.

There were no bodies found in the wreckage.

- What does that prove? - They were aliens.

When they die here on Earth, their bodies are consumed.

They disintegrate. I've seen it before.

And one of them had an awkwardness about his hands,

a mutated fourth finger.

I've seen that before too.

You don't expect me to believe all that, do you?

If you didn't suspect something like this,

why did you have Spence call me in the first place?

And where is Spence?

How did Wyeth know who I was before he'd even seen me?

And why did the Justice Department

send out agents so quickly to pick me up?

I don't have any answers.

Then try to find one.

Call the Justice Department. See if they sent agents here.

See if they ever even heard of me.

Tomkins, I cannot leave the post in the middle of the night

- any time you decide-- - General...

two of my people died a few hours ago.

I'm not interested.

You should be.

They were the ones sent out to pick up Vincent.

They're dead, general.

We have a man running around who knows too much.

That's the reason I called you out in the middle of the night.

What do you want me to do,

send out a search party?

I want you to reschedule the nuclear test.

Move it up. I want it within 24 hours.

That's impossible.

Your people couldn't detonate the nuclear device in that time?

They could do it by tomorrow noon if I ordered them to.

- Then do so, general. - I can't.

A committee from the United States Senate has been invited

to observe the test next week.

They'll have to be disappointed.

Although, by next week,

they'll have other things to think about, won't they?

The antimatter device is ready.

The special truck bringing it from the saucer is now en route.

Special truck?

Refrigerated.

The elements are highly unstable.

Once it arrives, all we have to do is deliver it to the test site

and set the timing mechanism.

I'll have to think about it.

You don't have time to think about it.

General, are you willing to risk the inevitable?

A nuclear war just to indulge a few senators?

Will you risk hundreds of millions of people

being blasted to radioactive dust?

Believe me, general,

this is the one chance your kind has to survive.

Tomorrow at noon.

[DOOR CLOSES]

Beaumont checked onto the post half an hour ago,

made one phone call to Washington and then went right out to the test site.

- Where was he last night? - I don't know.

But I do know that the nuclear test has been moved up to noon today.

Well, my escape must have forced them to push up their timetable.

Whatever they were planning for next week, they're doing today.

Now, look, Beaumont is the key to this whole thing. We don't have much time.

We've got to face him with the truth.

Let's go.

Come on.

Forty minutes.

Remember, don't set the timer until you reach the detonation site.

Right.

GRAVES: General Beaumont, sir.

What is it?

I believe you already know, general.

In case you haven't noticed, Rick, I'm busy.

- Now make your point and get out. - All right, sir, one question:

- Why was the test time moved up? - Technical reasons.

There's a man outside I want you to see, general.

I asked him to wait so that I could talk to you first.

All right, you've talk to me.

If I remember correctly, you're no longer on duty.

Ted.

You've got to see this man.

And if you won't,

I'll have to go over your head, call the Pentagon.

It may be too late already, but at least it's better than doing nothing.

And who is it you're about to risk your career on, major?

The man I smuggled back on to the post last night.

David Vincent.

How did you find him?

He found me.

And how did you know he wasn't still in jail, general?

I'll get him.

I saw you meet Tomkins in the desert.

You know who he is and what he is.

- And what is that, Mr. Vincent? - An alien being--

From outer space?

The men who picked me up last night were aliens too.

Major Graves checked it out.

The Justice Department never received a request to send agents.

As a matter of fact, they never even talked to you.

Where are these aliens?

They died in the auto wreck.

Naturally, their bodies will be available for examination?

No, they won't.

You know why.

You know what a busy morning this is for me, major.

I'm sorry that you chose to expose me

to the imaginings of, obviously, a diseased mind.

Did I imagine Spence's disappearance?

Is he dead?

Or don't they tell you everything?

Have you finished?

General, if you continue this collaboration,

you'll be serving the cause of beings dedicated to one thing:

The destruction of mankind, the takeover of this planet.

Now, I can't believe you'd knowingly do something like this.

Not a man with your record, not a man--

Record? What do you know of my record?

- I know enough. - You know nothing.

All you know are a few empty, stupid words

from a hundred speeches made at a hundred different parades.

General Beaumont, hero of two wars. Give him another medal.

I'll tell you what my record adds up to.

One hundred thousand men dead because of my orders.

My own son dead because he believed me

when I said his would be the last war.

Death, destruction and suffering, and all for what?

So that one day we could all kill ourselves

in one monumental nuclear holocaust?

Whose words are those, your alien friends?

- I'll call the Pentagon. - You'd be wasting your time, major.

Outside of this room, there isn't a man on Earth

who would believe either one of you.

Time is running out.

As it did for Spence, general?

Spence had to die, Rick. He had to.

He was endangering what we were doing, the plan.

Whose plan?

Yours or theirs?

Whose plan?

We made it up between ourselves.

A world gone totally radioactive, stripped of all life,

is of no greater value to them than it is to us.

Mr. Tomkins assured me that at great sacrifice to his people,

they were able to land an antimatter bomb on the Earth.

Six of their crafts were destroyed as well as all the crew,

blown to oblivion,

just to get that one bomb on the Earth.

Ted, what the devil are you talking about?

I'm talking about antimatter.

Matter that is the mirror image of ours

and when brought together with our matter,

it fuses and detonates.

Now, if this explosion happens on the surface of the Earth,

it's only a tremendous blast, nothing more.

But if it is detonated underground,

it would blow the Earth off its axis by several degrees.

Do you realise what you're talking about?

An effect like this could cause earthquakes, tidal waves.

Millions could die.

Think of how many millions more would be spared

the horror of atomic war

because the world will never know about the antimatter bomb.

They'll think the tragedy was caused by a nuclear explosion.

Atomic weapons will be banned.

Finally, there will be peace.

But millions die.

Doomsday comes today at noon, then what do the invaders do?

I don't care about that because the minute the explosion happens,

I'll be on the phone to the secretary of defence

and within 24 hours, they'll be exposed to the world.

Do you think they'll let you get away with that?

You'll be dead before you can make a phone call. They'll kill you.

I'm not that much of a fool, Vincent.

If anything happens to me,

Lt. General McIntyre at the Pentagon has orders to go into my safe,

take the contents directly to the president.

There's enough evidence in my safe

about the presence of the invaders on Earth

to convince even the general staff.

I would call the Pentagon if I were you and have my safe opened.

Why?

I doubt very much if your evidence is still in there.

That's ridiculous. I'd trust McIntyre. I've known him all my life.

Ted, in the name of God, call him.

Get me the Pentagon.

Anything wrong, sir?

Just a last minute adjustment.

Call the general if you want to.

McIntyre died this morning of a heart attack.

What about the evidence?

Listen to me.

I want you to go to my office and open my safe.

The combination is right 17,

two turns left to 42, one turn right to 30.

Check the contents.

I want an immediate report.

I'll hold on.

Thank you.

There's nothing in my safe

but my birth certificate and my 201 file.

Get me the gate.

Major Graves.

You are to hold any vehicle attempting to get into the test area.

That includes military vehicles until I--

What?

General, an Army truck went through there five minutes ago.

Where are they placing their bomb?

General.

They didn't tell me.

Major, I found a sketch of the detonation area in Wyeth's office.

It was all marked and prepared.

- You have a map of the area? - Sure, right over here.

Well, that circle's almost a mile from the test hole.

How far from here?

Oh, three miles.

General, will you--?

Major Graves, speaking for General Beaumont.

I want a squad of men sent into the test area immediately.

Combat ready.

General Beaumont will meet them there.

Right.

I told them you'd meet them there, general.

But before you go, I think you'd better cancel this detonation.

General, move! We have no time.

[OVER P.A.] Your attention, please. This is General Beaumont.

This detonation will be cancelled until further notice.

I'll say again, this detonation will be cancelled until further notice.

Give me that weapon, soldier.

Follow the general's car.

[GUNFIRE]

GRAVES: General, I think we could take a chance on, maybe--

What are you doing? Wait a minute. Hey!

[GUNFIRE]

[GUNFIRE]

Let me take the wheel, you're losing blood.

I'm all right.

I've gotta--

I'm going to deliver their bomb

right back to them.

What time is it?

It's almost noon.

We're almost there.

You better bail out.

Oh, no.

I don't know...

what I've been...

for the last few years or who.

But right now,

I'm General Theodore Beaumont, United States Army...

and I expect to be obeyed.

- You all right? - Yeah.

Go on.

[BEEP]

[EXPLOSION]

DAVID: Struck out, huh?

Well, at least it was a good long at bat.

They listened to me for over three hours.

Must be some sort of world's record for one man

in front of a military board of enquiry.

How could they write it off after the explosion, the firefight,

Beaumont's disappearance?

They didn't write it off. They just clamped the security lid down tight.

The enquiry may go on for months, even years.

You know what the verdict is?

Attempted sabotage by enemies unknown.

Well, that's something anyway.

Well, major,

we haven't lost.

I hope not, Vincent.

I pray we haven't.

NARRATOR: The Earth turns on its axis,

unaware of the disaster that never happened

and David Vincent goes forward again,

very much aware that a far greater disaster can lie ahead.

The final disaster,

wrought by the invader.

Post-traitement : OggiWan