One year later, the disguised Hood hypnotises delegates at a science conference and steals the "Mighty Atom" – an artificially-intelligent roaming surveillance device that looks like a mouse. Travelling to the Sahara, he uses the Mighty Atom to photograph the interior of a new, automated irrigation plant maintained by Wade and his assistant Collins. He then decides to exploit the situation further by creating a disaster to which the newly-formed International Rescue will respond, giving him an opportunity to use the device to steal the secrets of the "Thunderbird" machines. To this end, he detonates explosive devices around the plant's reactor, fatally de-stabilising it.