This Red Eye episode 5 recap contains spoilers... Matthew and Hana finally discover what Shen gave him on the night he fled Beijing, but they're unable to send it back to Thames House.
Meanwhile the pair finally confront the sinister assassin below decks and MI5 Director General Madeline Delaney is forced out of Thames House as Jon Tennant makes his move in a power grab...
The assassin has tracked Jess to her home and waits outside as Hana’s boss, Simon O’Brien, arrives and suggests the young journalist should be in protective custody for her own safety. He says her parents might want to book a hotel as well. However as he puts her in his car, MI5 operatives arrive to whisk her away.
On Flight 357, Hana opens up about her troubled relationship with Jess and how she wrote an article about her last year without asking permission. “It was her big break and I killed it,” says Hana.
Yet while Jess is in safe hands, Matthew is worried that Sir George - his "last hope” - is now dead. However the late spy’s insistence that Matthew must have something the Chinese want brings back memories of his final night in Beijing.
“What if it was Shen who stabbed me?” he wonders before theorising that maybe she hid something in his wound while he was barely conscious. The job of rooting around inside the gash on his side will fall to Hana.. (Ewwww!) And after much rummaging she pulls out a Nano SIM card!
What's on the Nano SIM card?
Meanwhile at Thames House, as Jess is being questioned by Director Delaney and John Tennant, we learn that Hana’s mother was arrested after the Chinese take over of Hong Kong and died in custody.
Delaney is suspicious of Jess, as she survived the assassination attempt that killed a trained MI5 officer, Sir George Chapman. Although while news of government agents removing files from World Pacific Medicine clearly comes as a surprise to Delaney, it's not a shock for Tennant. “I couldn’t risk China making a connection between Nolan and Blindside,” he tells a furious Delaney.
It turns out Tennant cast Nolan aside as he didn’t have what they were looking for, which seems a tad hasty, especially after Hana calls to explain what she’s found in Nolan’s wound. Delaney tells her to access the SIM card, but that she should “..stay public. Now you have it, you’re in more danger than ever.”
MI5 sets up a secure address for Hana to view the two files on the SIM, but before the upload can complete the mysterious killer who’s been loitering in the hold cuts the plane's internet connection. Tennant immediately tries to pin the blame on the Chinese.. “The file is called CAE, China Atomic Energy, who else could this be?” But Delaney isn’t so sure.
Co-pilot Wu heads downstairs to investigate and finds someone has torn out the wires and despite the captain's protestations, he tells Hana and Matthew about the other strange things that have been going on.
Agent Zhao and Hana go looking for this mysterious assassin, however when he appears, Zhao betrays Hana. We just knew he wasn’t to be trusted! “Go get Nolan, he has the SIM,” Zhao tells his counterpart.
Why is DC Hana Li being framed?
However Matthew has already realised what’s going on and when the hooded killer appears from behind his panel, he's able to hide from him and proceed through the gap and down into the hold. When he gets down there, Zhao demands the SIM and while Matthew seems very happy to hand it over, Hana is not so easily defeated and as she battles Zhao, the crazed assassin arrives and attacks Matthew.
As Matthew overcomes the killer, the captain heads down to the hold to see what’s going on. When he gets there he finds that Hana has recovered the SIM and Zhao is at death’s door after his tooth is broken in the struggle, releasing the cyanide capsule inside.
With his dying breath, Zhao calls Hana ‘Wing Yee’, which is a name Nolan recognises from a luggage tag he saw earlier in the flight. “I’ve never seen this bag before in my life?” says Hana, as the flight attendant who brought it on-board is called down.
When they get the case open they discover a stash of cash from a range of different countries and a host of passports, all of which have Hana’s photo. “I’m being framed,” says Hana. “This makes me look like a British spy, the death will be pinned on me!” She and Nolan beg the captain to turn the plane around, but it seems his family will suffer if he does.
The captain is keen to try and help though and unlocks a hatch on the floor when he returns to the cockpit, allowing Hana to take it by force in a rehearsed move. The captain protests weakly so Chinese air traffic control can hear and with a gun pointed at his head, co-pilot Wu turns the plane back towards London.
What's Director Delaney's plan?
At Thames House, Delaney chats to Mike on the phone and correctly guesses that Tennant is lining up the US as a buyer, in case China is implicated in the deaths of Flight 357 and the nuclear deal is placed in jeopardy. “He has no idea what information Shen Zhao gave Nolan,” says Delaney, yet Mike advises her that Tennant is getting ready to throw her under the bus with the PM.
When Delaney speaks to Hana after she takes control of the plane, the London-based detective explains how she’d also been framed by Zhao, who’s now dead. She doesn’t reveal that Nolan killed the unnamed assassin though, which he’s grateful for. “Zhao had cyanide in his tooth, which implies he was Chinese state security," she explains.
Minister Tan is on the line for Delaney, but the MI5 director won’t take the call. However the PM is also on the line for her. “MI5 is not set up to handle international operations like this and you taking point has just made matters worse!” says the PM, who then asks Tennant to take over command of the operation.
Delaney is concerned that Tennant will throw Hana and Nolan to the wolves, but is also worried that this development isn’t good news for Jess, who’s still in custody. She takes her assistant’s mobile and car keys and leaves with Jess, to Tennant’s fury.
“I’ll probably lose my career for what we’re about to do,” says Delaney as she heads to the US Embassy. “I don’t trust that Tennant isn’t involved in whatever’s going on anymore..” she tells Mike. But as he talks to her on the phone, Mike is sitting across the desk from the assassin who tried to kill Jess!
