Dangerous Assignment: Epidemic - Needle in a Haystack (Landsburg)

Dangerous assignment, starring Brian Donlevi as Steve Mitchell. Yeah, danger is my assignment. I get sent to a lot of places I can't even pronounce. They all spell the same thing, though. Trouble, but when I walk into the Commissioner's office, I don't realize that this assignment's going to have me looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

The only difference is the needle I'm looking for means death to about 3,000 people. Morning Commissioner. Those said you had an assignment for me. I do, Steve, and I'm afraid it's a pretty rough one.

You know, sometime you'll give me an easy one and I'll fall flat on my face. Okay, what's the deal? You just named it. What do you mean? That part about falling flat on your face.

Oh, fine. Look, you'd better start on page one. Okay, Steve. What would you do if you were a doctor and had a patient with fever, partial deafness and paralysis? I'd send for another doctor. Steve, answer the question.

Okay, okay. So if I were a doctor and had a patient that'd come down with symptoms like that, I'd try to find out what was the matter with him in the hurry. Suppose you couldn't find out.

Couldn't find... No, look. And suppose furthermore, that most of the other people in town came down with the same symptoms. Not just a minute. Would you mind telling me the point of this charming little analogy?

There's no analogies, T. That's exactly what's going on right now in the little town of Landsberg and our occupation zone of Germany. Well, that's right. Within the past three weeks, almost one half the town's population has been stricken.