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HANOVER JEWELS

Hanover Jewels

General Petrovich, of the Bulgarian Secret Police, was involved in the corruption within his government, insisting that skimming was necessary in order to live on a government salary. A small part of that skimming was the theft of a collection of jewels that had been a part of the crown jewels of the German House of Hanover, worth 700,000 leva, more than $400,000. To keep them hidden, he had given the jewels to his sister, who was unaware of the crime and believed the jewels were fake.

His nephew, Stepan Frolov, his sister's son and a major in the Secret Police, was also unaware of his uncle's criminal activity or the true value of the jewelry now in his mother's possession. Stepan had been smitten by Penny Parker, an American who had come to Bulgaria with a troupe of nightclub dancers. As their relationship began, Stepan gave Penny some of his mother's jewelry "just to wear," and she too had assumed that such elaborate pieces couldn't possibly be real. When Penny ended their relationship and planned to return home, she took the jewelry with her. Stepan followed Penny to the airport, hoping to convince her to stay, but when she refused, he asked only that she return the jewelry he had given her. However, Penny had met MacGyver while in line at the airport, and she had secretly slipped the jewels into MacGyver's pocket to hide them. When they triggered the airport metal detector, Stepan arrested and detained them both, confiscating a piece of microfilm that MacGyver was carrying, and recovering all of the jewels except for a single ring that Penny had kept hidden.

When MacGyver and Penny escaped from the airport by breaking through a wall and riding a luggage conveyor belt, Stepan and Petrovich concluded that they had been collaborating as spies, and Petrovich ordered that they be recaptured and that the jewelry and the microfilm, which contained evidence against him, be recovered at all costs. Stepan finally caught up with MacGyver and Penny at his uncle's home outside the city where they had stopped for the night. Penny, angry and hurt by Stepan's accusation that she was a spy, turned over the ring. However, when General Petrovich arrived, he insisted that there be no witnesses, and he ordered his nephew to shoot them both.

Stepan had come to believe that Penny was innocent, and he could not bring himself to kill the woman with whom he had fallen in love. Instead, he and MacGyver overpowered the general, and Stepan agreed to join MacGyver and Penny en route to the border. Thanks to MacGyver's concocted highway hazard that helped them to evade police, MacGyver, Penny, and Stepan, were able to safely escape across the Greek border, still carrying the ring and the microfilm that held the proof of the theft of the Hanover jewels.

Cross Reference: Bulgaria, Stepan Frolov, Penny Parker, General Petrovich

Episode Reference: Every Time She Smiles