THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY - HOW ROOD!

Carlton Rood was a highly successful defense attorney in New York City whose clientele consisted mostly of the criminal element. It was rare for any of his clients to ever get convicted, but this wasn't entirely due to his ability to convince the jury to accept his interpretation of the facts in the case.

Sometimes key witnesses met with untimely ends, but Carlton Rood could never be implicated as having been involved.

Simon Templar set up a con to get a conviction against one of Rood's clients, which led to the death of Carlton Rood - thus removing him from the scene as a shady lawyer. (I'm still not sure if this was the intended result of Templar's scheme.)

Carlton Rood had a brother who was also in the legal system. Once a lawyer himself, the older Rood got elected to the bench and served as a judge in New York City. Judge Rood was just as corrupt as his brother Carlton, and he often used his position to his own advantage. He not only ruled on cases from which he could profit, but he also used great influence to persuade politicians and elected officials to change laws so that he could profit.

After the death of his brother, Judge Rood found his stellar career begin to dim. A whisper campaign was mounted against him with claims that he was just as crooked as his brother. Former friends in positions of power stopped returning his calls. It looked as though he was finally going to lose a re-election.

Judge Rood was approached by a secret organization with an offer to join them. Accepting the dire circumstances of his future as it currently stood, the Judge accepted their offer. The judge was brought into the organization and they made it look like he completely vanished from the world, like Judge Crater before him.

For a few years, Judge Rood served as a bureaucratic functionary in the organization. But then in the late 1960's, he was given charge of a new project - he would be in charge of a village full of kidnapped operatives and any others with government secrets that needed to be extracted.

And these "Villagers" were from governments all over the world, for this Village was a microcosm of the world. (Like so many before him, the Judge never knew for what side the organization worked. And it probably didn't matter.

The Judge was installed as the new "Number Two" of the Village and given one specific task before all others - more than on any other prisoner, Number Two was to focus on Number Six and force him to reveal why he resigned. It was believed that if they could break the resolve of Number Six and make him answer that, then they could get all his secrets.

The Judge used a deadly mind control experiment with a live action role playing game of "Cowboy". But the role-playing was just as intense for the other participants working for the Judge - although Number Six never broke, the others did. One of his assistants went mad and then choked the girl working with him to death before plunging to his own demise.

It was not long afterwards that the Judge was removed from his office in the Green Dome building and never seen again in the world.

Unless of course he changed his name and resurfaced somewhere else, leading a new life....

SHOWS CITED:

• 'The Saint' - "Element Of Doubt"
• 'The Prisoner' - "Living In Harmony"

David Bauer played both roles.......

 

BCnU!