VICTORIA

The S.S. Victoria is a cruise ship which carries about 1100 passengers. She was sailing in the North Pacific Ocean at approximately 40°N latitude and 165°E longitude, about 1000 miles east of Hokkaido, Japan, when she received an anonymous phone call alerting the captain to the presence of a bomb on board. Captain Howard went to investigate, and he was killed in the explosion, leaving First Officer Carole Tanner, now the acting captain, and Second Officer Atkins in charge of the ship. The anonymous bomber, calling himself Viking, communicated using a series of prerecorded phone calls in an electronically disguised voice, and he threatened that another explosion would follow unless he was given $6 million in exchange for instructions on how to diffuse the bomb.

A tropical cyclone named Typhoon Henry, nearly 200 miles across, was approaching the Victoria's position from the southwest, and although the ship adjusted course to avoid the worst of it, the situation made it impossible to evacuate the passengers into lifeboats, and no sea or air rescue units were available in the area, leaving the only options to diffuse the bomb or to pay the ransom. To deal with the crisis, Pete Thornton called in MacGyver and Charlie Robinson, with whom MacGyver had worked as a bomb-diffusing team when they had served together in Vietnam. Also working the case from Los Angeles was Mike Donahue, another bomb expert and Vietnam veteran who had run a bomb squad out of Da Nang and who had lost a leg while commanding the lead sabotage control group in Cam Ranh Bay.

MacGyver and Charlie Robinson took a 5-hour jet to Midway and a 2½-hour helicopter flight to the Victoria's location, leaving them approximately three hours to disarm the bomb. Acting Captain Carole Tanner escorted the team to the bomb they had discovered in the engine room, but as the search of the ship continued, Second Officer Atkins brought word that two more identical bombs had been located. The bombs had likely been installed the previous month when the ship and been in dry dock, and they were clearly the design of an expert. Disguised to look like a fake electrical panel behind sealed glass, they included a yellow chemical powder in a dish, a heat sensitive thermocouple, cylinders of acid which carried an electrical current, and a timer.

Thornton made the decision to meet Viking's ransom demands and to pay the $6 million dollars, and Donahue and a team of agents left a briefcase with the money in a locker at the downtown bus depot as instructed. However, Viking retrieved the money without being detected, and in retaliation for dealing in bad faith, he refused to give the instructions for diffusing the bomb. Aboard the Victoria, MacGyver and Charlie began working to diffuse the first two bombs, maintaining radio communication between them and with Thornton's team in Los Angeles. However, as Charlie penetrated the seal around the cabinet in order to test the yellow chemical, he breached the vacuum inside, revealing that the chemical was phosphorus, which flashed when exposed to air, triggered the thermocouple, and set off the bomb. Charlie died in the explosion.

Carole Tanner volunteered to take Charlie's place and to work in tandem with MacGyver to diffuse the remaining two bombs. Although MacGyver's tools had been lost in the ocean when he arrived, he and Carole used materials at hand to diffuse each trigger. A tube from a neon sign was used to create a momentary suction and safely withdraw the phosphorus from the vacuum, and the electrolyte acid was neutralized using a pastry tube, oven cleaner, and low fat milk so that it could be safely drained. MacGyver realized that the chemical detonator, the thermocouple, and the unstable electrolyte fluid had all been signatures of the Ling Chow Bomber in Cam Ranh Bay in 1973 when Donahue had commanded the sabotage control group there, and that Donahue would have been familiar with each of these triggers. When Pete ran a cross check, the computer determined that Donahue was the most likely suspect for Viking's identity.

Although the bombs seemed to be disabled after the acid was drained, they suddenly reactivated with a timer connected to two fuses, one yellow and one blue. MacGyver urged Donahue to make a judgement call about which fuse to pull in order to save the ship and capture Viking, and when Donahue insisted that he pull the blue, MacGyver pulled the yellow. The bombs were deactivated, Donahue's identity as Viking was confirmed, and he was immediately arrested. The Victoria had been saved, and she was able to continue on her course.

Portrayed by: MS Vistafjord

Cross Reference: Officer Atkins, Mike Donahue, Captain Howard, Pacific Ocean, Charlie Robinson, Carole Tanner, Viking

Episode Reference: Countdown