Mission: Impossible (TV Series)

The Code (1969)

Peter Graves: James Phelps

Photos 

Quotes 

• Willy Armitage : I don't see a legible number anywhere in the picture.

  James Phelps : I don't, either, but it's gotta be in there somewhere... The clock. In the tower of the building in the foreground. 2:33. Well, there can't be too many variations. It could be that every second word of every third line of every third group is transposed.

  [Jim types this possibility into a special decoding keypad. He tears off the resulting printout] 

  James Phelps : Nope. Maybe every second line.

• James Phelps : [last lines] 

  [the IMF team listening to the Janos and Vincente accusing each other of betrayal when a gunshot is heard] 

  James Phelps : The alliance is broken.

  Barney Collier : Who fired?

  James Phelps : What difference does it make?

• [Jim Phelps, Willie, and Paris are admiring Barney's latest device, a Remotely Operated Vehicle, ROV, with drill, similar to Pipeline Inspection Gauge or PIG used in Oil and Gas Industry, Paris is holding a Nine of Diamonds card up to its camera] 

  James Phelps : Great, Barney.

  Barney Collier : There'll be no transmission problems, Jim, because the Presidential Mansion has its own television transmitter. We'll simply piggyback onto the parabolic antenna and get a strong signal.

  James Phelps : Mm-hm. Now, their normal method of sending coded messages is by transatlantic cable, but for extra security precautions, the invasion plans are being delivered by a courier from the UPR. He'll arrive at three o'clock.

  Willy Armitage : Will it just be in code form?

  James Phelps : No, no, it'll be treated the same as the other messages. It's a unique process where the code is hidden by a photographic overlay. Some kind of chemical spray is placed between the code and the photograph allowing them to be joined together, and another spray separates them once the message has been transmitted.

  Barney Collier : Once the courier's photograph gets into the communications room and is removed, the code's only visible for a few seconds.

  James Phelps : That'll be long enough.

• [Jim and Willy have only a few minutes to solve the code, which appears as an enormous block of five-lettered groupings] 

  James Phelps : The photograph.

  Willy Armitage : What?

  James Phelps : Well, there has to be a key to the grouping variations somewhere. We know that it's not in that message itself, but it could be on the photograph that the code was transmitted on. Run the tape back.

• James Phelps : [hands Paris a drawing]  And this is El Lider.

  Paris : [his first lines on the series]  Yeah. He was captured two weeks ago. It's a closely guarded secret. There have been no photographs of El Lider for seven years.

• Willy Armitage : What's the matter, Jim ?

  James Phelps : It won't decode.

  Willy Armitage : But it was our message, we know what it means ?

  James Phelps : Yes, Yes ! I know it. But there is a grouping variation that doesn't follow any pattern I can come up with. I though it might be a SIMEX transposition, but it's not !