30 Minutes After Noon - Plot

Plot

In Spoke City, office worker Thomas Prescott accepts an apparently innocent hitch-hiker into his car. However, the stranger's true intentions are revealed when he attaches a metal bracelet to Prescott's wrist, warning him that it contains a powerful explosive charge due to detonate in 30 minutes, and that the unlocking key is to be found in his office at the Hudson Building. Speeding to the building with police in pursuit, Prescott slips inside and leaves the bracelet in his office. It detonates as he is returning to the ground floor in a lift, obliterating the top floors and hurling Prescott to the bottom of the lift shaft ten levels underground.

Although the fire is brought under control, Prescott is cut off from outside help. News of the events in Spoke City soon reaches Tracy Island. Jeff dispatches Scott in Thunderbird 1, while Virgil and Alan depart in Thunderbird 2 with brand-new fire-fighting apparatus. Lowered into the shaft in a protective cage fitted with diacetylene sprinklers, Virgil and Alan clamp the stricken lift and return to ground level, whereupon Prescott is arrested. Police Commissioner Garfield notes that classified documentation on criminal organisations, including the dangerous Erdman Gang, has been lost in the blaze. Prescott's explanation about the stranger is proven to be true when the charred remnants of the bracelet are uncovered.

An operation to expose the Erdman Gang leads to the enlistment of Southern, a British Secret Service agent, who will infiltrate the organisation and gather intelligence on its latest scheme. The Gang Leader contacts the undercover Southern and members Dempsey and Kenyon at Glen Carrick Castle in the Scottish Highlands and briefs them on their assignment. The men are to drive south to the Nuclear Plutonium Store, where isotopes for all British power stations are based, and rig explosives to detonate at 12:30 pm, causing the largest nuclear explosion ever and obliterating half of England. To ensure obedience, the charges are pre-set and contained in bracelets identical to the one planted on Prescott's wrist, to be unlocked at the store.

On their arrival, Southern, Dempsey and Kenyon use a ray gun to subdue robot guards and pass through one secure door to the next, ending up in the plutonium vault. Southern reveals his true identity and threatens the others with a gun, ordering them to proceed to the Leader's proposed rendezvous point and capture him. However, after a robot catches Southern in an impossible grip, Dempsey and Kenyon unlock the bracelets and depart, jamming the door controls to trap Southern next to the nuclear explosion.

Southern's emergency call is transferred from his superior, Sir William Frazer, to International Rescue. Landing outside the Plutonium Store in Thunderbirds 1 and 2, Scott and Virgil use the Laser Cutter Vehicle to burn through the jammed doors. Inside the vault, Virgil releases Southern from the robot. As the time nears 30 minutes past noon, Scott lifts off in Thunderbird 1 with the bracelets and jettisons them into the sea to detonate in isolation. Meanwhile, on Jeff's orders, Lady Penelope and Parker race to the Erdman Gang rendezvous in FAB1 and shoot down the Leader, Dempsey and Kenyon as the criminals prepare to escape in a helijet. Southern is permitted to recover from his ordeal at the Creighton-Ward Mansion.