Bottom Line

Medical technician Jasper Stevens warns private detective Zack Meadows of danger to the Lippincotts. Elena Gladstone captures them at Lifeline Laboratory, gives them an induced fear of water, and leaves them to die in a shallow Central Park lake. Flossie mails Meadows’s letter, which prompts the unnamed incumbent President to contact CURE because the family is handling an overseas trade initiative. Lem Lippincott dies in a paranoid leap from a Tokyo bank, also killing three bystanders. Remo and Chiun investigate while Ruby traces Meadows’s letter drafts to Lifeline. Randall’s clothing aversion leads to a breakdown; Gladstone injects him again at a clinic, but Chiun stabilizes him.

Gladstone sends two unnamed men after the pair, and Remo kills them. Elmer confesses commissioning his sons’ humiliation after doctors falsely convinced him they were not his children. He tries to stop the experiment, but Gloria orders Randall killed and Beers later confirms carrying that out. Ruby finds Meadows and Stevens’s bodies, infiltrates Lifeline, and is captured. Gladstone describes transferring fear responses with animal peptides and binding compounds, then attempts to kill Ruby; Ruby cuts her throat and frees one arm before Remo and Chiun arrive to assist. Gloria and Beers plan to kill Douglas and ultimately Elmer so Gloria and Beers’s unborn child can inherit.

The three investigators arrive in time to save Douglas. Beers confesses; when he attacks Ruby, she injects him with his own unnamed drug and he dies. Douglas exposes the fraud to Elmer and announces plans to oust him from business control. Ruby pretends to inject Elmer with an experimental fear drug, then reveals to Remo that it was water. Elmer and Gloria remain alive when the investigators leave.