A Mission-Impossible style break-in as Frohike and Byers attempt to steal the Octium IV chip from E-Com-Con's top security room. Langly fakes an allergy attack to distract security from their monitors. A "Bearded Man" is seen, and Langly obviously recognizes him. The "Bearded Man" takes advantage of the chaos to steal the chip -- right out from under Frohike's nose -- by hijacking the software that Byers is using to run the winch for Frohike's little trapeze getup.

Byers is informed of his father's mysterious death. He hadn't spoken to his father in 11 years, since he got together with Frohike and Langly to start publishing the weekly newsletter, The Lone Gunman. At the funeral, a Mr. Helm introduces himself to Johnny as his father's long time friend, and offers to talk with him about his father's death.

As the death is investigated, the Gunmen become more and more entangled in a terrorist plot (Scenario 12-D), eventually facing off against a governmental power known as Overlord -- who also happens to be Mr. Helm. Byers and his father (who is not actually dead after all) get on the targeted aircraft in an attempt to sniff out the bomb with what look like home-made mini hydrocarbon sniffers. This might have worked, but unfortunately, there's no bomb on the airplane. It's being controlled, like Bert Byers' car, by someone else -- Overlord and his henchgeek, obviously.

As Langly races against time to save the lives of Byers and his dad (and the other airline passengers), his system keeps pegging. It's going to take at least seven to ten days to decrypt the security -- and all they've got is 20 minutes! Frohike saves the day by not only "persuading" Yves Harlow to let him use the Octium IV chip, but manages to steal the chip from her when she wasn't looking, thus garnering them not only a few hundred saved lives, but a weekly headline as well!