The sequel to Cherry Glass, The Devil in Tasmania, continues the exploits of Agent Fleece and the Fathom family as they team together again to thwart terrorists in a global attempt to cripple the United States.
The bonding between U. S. Treasury Agent Fleece and engineer Jack is complete – Fleece and his new trainee, AGENT BESS BELLE, fly to Tasmania to help his buddy get out of jail. Upon their arrival at the airport, Fleece once again shows his knack for getting into trouble. Fortunately they are met at the airport by the dashing Australian Secret Intelligence Service AGENT AARON COOKE, and his keen Australian Sheppard, BOOMER, who have been assigned to escort them while in the country. He quickly helps remedy an embarrassing situation and quickly wins the heart of Agent Belle. Agent Fleece, too old to be her boyfriend and too young to be her father, doesn’t know whether to be jealous or protective. A fierce competition develops between Fleece and Cooke.
Upon their arrival to the jail where Jack is incarcerated, they have a run-in with the local constable in charge, OFFICER BLUNT, who is blunt and so much more. It may be that he has been made completely miserable by Jack’s wife, Nancy, who has been hounding him to no end while waiting for help to arrive. The rivalry between the Australian continent and the Tasmanian Island is apparent as Cooke finds Blunt to be uncooperative and suspicious.
Once Jack and Fleece are reunited and re-bond, much to the disgust of Nancy and Belle, the focus turns to Yuri. Did Jack really see him, and if so, what is he doing in Tasmania? They go to a warehouse housing the charred remains of the cars and trucks that ended up “barbied” during the fracas on the ferry. Upon closer inspection by the astute and insistent Agent Belle along with help from Boomer, it becomes apparent that Agent Cooke’s men overlooked some key evidence. Cleverly hidden in assorted charred crates are parts of a rocket. Fleece decides it is time to let Jack know the real reason he and Belle flew all the way “down under” – they are part of an advance team preparing for the arrival of the U. S. President at a G8 summit in Sydney the next day. The encounter with Yuri was not such a coincidence after all.
Leading up to these events in Tasmania were suspicious activities at a secret Iranian missile factory observed by a U. S. spy satellite. There was also an unusual high seas clash between a South Korean fishing vessel and a North Korean gunboat. The South Korean fishing boat reappears, now manned by the North Koreans, in a restricted fishing zone near Tasmania, and is boarded by the crew of a Royal Australian Navy ship. After a search finds nothing suspicious, they are given a stern warning and the boat is allowed to continue on. Unseen by the Navy crew is a strange metal pod suspended by a cable under the fishing boat.
The storyline begins to switch back and forth between continents in an intriguing intertwining of events. There is an encounter between an Iranian General and a North Korean entourage at a drug cartel compound in Tequila, Mexico. North Koreans arrive and deliver a metal pod similar to the one seen earlier on the South Korean fishing boat. The Iranians are assembling a large rocket from parts hidden in crates stored in the compound.
Back at the office, Rusty Sly is at work when he gets another untimely call from Jack asking him to help identify what he believes is a rocket nozzle actuator. Rusty is overdressed in a tuxedo for “shoot down day”. He is leaving to participate in a test of the Airborne Laser, or ABL, a 747 equipped with a high powered laser designed to shoot down ballistic missiles. Standing by Rusty when he answers the phone is the ever vigilant company security manager Bwana and his “Men in Black” going through Jack’s desk and computer again. Apparently Jack’s international high jinks are too much for Bwana to pass up. As Bwana lurks nearby, Rusty agrees to help Jack “just this last time”. Jack is calling from a rental car trying to drive on the left side of the road in Tasmania while holding a cell phone. Fleece and Belle are riding along in fear for their lives.
The action begins to pick up when they come upon a truck similar to a charred one they inspected earlier at the warehouse. When they try to follow it, gun fire erupts, and a wild chase scene ends with the rental car going off the road and colliding with a cluster of commercial beehives. Barely surviving the ordeal, they notice there are no bees, only missile guidance parts hidden in the hives labeled “The Tasmanian Honey Company”.
Meanwhile, Nancy has decided it’s time to do some actual vacationing, so she takes the kids for a drive into the back roads of Tasmania and immediately gets lost. She gets pulled over by a Tasmanian police car and thinks she will get directions, but to her surprise it is Officer Blunt. Turns out he has something else in mind.
Back on the other side of the world, Agent Burke and his sidekick, AGENT TEX TRILLER, a tall, lanky Texan true to his name, are making a visit to Maxim at the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba. The “interview” doesn’t go well for Maxim, and they get some interesting information but are not sure what it all means. They put a call into Agent Fox, arm in a sling, still recovering from her gunshot wound as she arrives at CIA headquarters in Langley. Is someone actually trying to “connect the dots”? Fox is meeting with experienced SPECIAL AGENT DOYLE and his “this is the best summer ever” college intern, JASON KNIGHT. With the help of Jason’s sharp computer skills all the pieces start coming together in the heart of the CIA covert operations center – Iranian secret missile complex, Iranians and North Koreans in a Mexican drug compound, North Koreans on a South Korean fishing boat, etc.
Back on the Tasmanian Island, Fleece and company are making progress with the information they have compiled including the information from Rusty that the rocket actuator is that of an Iranian nuclear missile. Such a missile has the range to hit Sydney and the G8 Summit from Tasmania. Progress comes to a grinding halt when Belle is astonished to learn that it’s time for Fleece’s nap. Meanwhile she’s puzzled to see Jack sneaking off and follows him. Jack has gotten a cryptic call from Nancy that leads him straight to her and the kids, held captive by Yuri thanks to the cooperation of Officer Blunt. Unfortunately it’s a trap, and Jack and Belle get captured with Belle getting shot in the process. Waking up from his nap, Fleece wanders around wondering where everyone has gone when Cooke appears. They put 2-and-2 together and head for The Tasmania Honey Company.
What has now become a tradition, Nancy is begrudgingly playing nursemaid to another trainee shot under the mentorship of Fleece. Jack realizes that they are being held in the nerve center of a nuclear missile launch complex, disguised as a warehouse. What’s regarded as “Aussie for sneaking up”, Cooke and Fleece come crashing to the rescue through the wall of the warehouse in Cooke’s beat up but trusty old Range Rover. Yuri escapes in the ensuing gun battle, but Cooke and Fleece quickly follow in pursuit. With Nancy looking over his shoulder, Jack nervously puts his engineering skills to work trying to thwart the countdown of the impending missile launch and the nuclear destruction of Sydney – no pressure, Jack.
Back at CIA headquarters, Fox and Knight have discovered that there is actually a dual terrorist attack in progress. The second attack is a nuclear missile launch from the Mexican drug compound to San Diego, host to a Presidential nomination convention, featuring the Vice President and his running mate, the House majority leader. The President, the next 2 successors and 7 world leaders are soon to be eliminated by the terrorists’ plot.
Fortunately Jack is successful in stopping the Sydney missile launch while Yuri meets an appropriate termination at the hands of Fleece and Cooke. Burke and Tex, sent to the drug cartel compound, fail to stop the second missile launch. Meanwhile, Rusty is on-console with the Air Force laser team circling in the air in the ABL 747 as they wait to simulate a missile shoot down. Rusty, looking oddly out of place but handsomely sharp in his tuxedo, gets a call from Jack and becomes the unlikely hero. He convinces the Air Force that there is a real missile attack, kicks a few pieces of hardware to get the laser working and shoots the San Diego bound missile down just in the nick of time.
In an appropriate tribute, Fleece, Belle, Cooke and Jack, along with Boomer, one paw in a sling, gather in the East Wing of the White House to receive the Medal of Freedom from the President.
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