Mission: Impossible #4: Code Name: Little Ivan

Mission: Impossible #4: Code Name: Little Ivan, by John Tiger

No month stated, 1969  Popular Library

After a one-year gap the Mission: Impossible series returned with this fourth (and final) volume. Walter Wager also returned as “John Tiger;” he’d written the first volume back in 1967. That one tied in with the show’s first season; Code Name: Little Ivan ties in with the fourth season. Series regulars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were gone, meaning that their characters Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter do not appear in this book; instead, we have magician/actor Paris (as protrayed by none other than Leonard Nimoy in Seasons 4 and 5), and a female character named Annabelle Drue, a “sloe-eyed” beauty who previously worked as a model before becoming an IMF agent “three years ago.” This character is unique to Code Name: Little Ivan, and likely was a creation of the editors at Popular Library. 

For, page 12 and the back cover copy of Code Name: Little Ivan reveal that Rollin Hand and Cinnamon Carter did appear in Wager’s original text: Paris is mistakenly referred to as “Rollin” on page 12, and the back cover lists Cinnamon as one of the characters in the book. So it seems clear that these two characters were originally in the book, but had to be replaced when the actors left the show. And only the names were changed, as Paris acts in the same capacity as Rollin Hand – a noted actor who seems mostly into the whole IMF thing for the drama – and Annabelle Drue is described in the same terms Wager used for Cinnamon Carter in the first novel: a “leggy blonde,” etc. I’d imagine some editor at the imprint had to go through the text and change all mentions of “Rollin Hand” to “Paris” and “Cinnamon Carter” to “Annabelle Drue;” other than the aforementioned two misses, the editor did a good job. 

Wager again proves himself the best writer on this short-lived series, and not just because he’s clearly the only writer who actually bothered to watch the show. Once again his novel feels very much like an episode of the series, perhaps one with an expanded budget. While the previous two novels just seemed like generic ‘60s spy action, Code Name: Little Ivan is clearly intended to be a genuine Mission: Impossible story, following the template of every show: IMF “chief” Jim Phelps (described by Wager as an athletic “blond” man…who packs a .357 Magnum beneath his “expensively-tailored” sport coat!) is briefed via self-destructing tape and then goes about pondering the assignment and then putting together a team for the job. Here we get the tidbit that the Impossible Mission Force is comprised of “volunteer civilian daredevils.” 

One additional thing Wager injects into his version of Mission: Impossible is a sense of humor. I wasn’t too fond of this – the show itself is usually pretty cold and aloof – but fortunately it wasn’t too egregious. We aren’t talking pratfalls or anything, but we have a lot of goofy bantering between idiotic East German officials, with a bungling assistant who is the source of his superior’s wrath…and also a lot of the payoffs on the caper are done comedically, which doesn’t gibe with the series vibe at all. This even extends to the typically-cold IMF agents, particularly Paris, who often chortles to himself about “going too far” in his portrayal of an overly-patriotic Red Army officer. There’s also a little more “friendly banter” among the IMF agents than typically seen in the show; Paris, for example, is a bit egotistical, and Phelps convinces him to take the job by appealing to his egotism. 

Now that I think of it, Code Name: Little Ivan doesn’t veer too far from the constraints of the show; given some of the relatively implausible sci-fi scenarios seen on Mission: Impossible, I think the plot of this one could have fit right in. Basically, the IMF team must get into East Germany and steal a protoype Russian tank that’s made of a new alloy. As it turns out, though, there aren’t any big fireworks or really any action whatsoever; late in the novel there is a staged assault on a German military base, but in true Mission: Impossible style it’s all a fakeout, nothing more than Barney Collier hoodwinking the moronic soldiers with a sound effects tape. 

Wager has the mandatory opening down pat: Phelps shows up at a carnival in his unstated home city and proves his marksmanship skills to win a stuffed animal. After exchanging some code words with the proprietor, Phelps gets on a roller coaster – one that stops at the top so he, alone on the ride, can hear the secret tape that’s embedded in the stuffed animal. A secret tape which of course self-destructs after playing. From there to the also-mandatory bit of Phelps in his swank pad going over his IMF dossier to put together his team; here we learn that “Paris” was injured in a recent assignment and has not been stated as fit for duty by the medics, but Phelps figures Paris will take the job when he hears how impossible it is. 

And it truly is one for the “master thieves” of the IMF: they must steal an entire tank and sneak it out of East Germany. So they go about this in the usual caper way: Phelps and Barney pose as salesmen for “Lovely Lips,” a lipstick manufacturer(!), Annabelle is their hotstuff French model, and Paris poses as a KGB agent, with typically-sidelined muscleman Willy Armitage acting as his chaffeur. Willy’s presence was apparently challenging even for the screenwriters – how do you integrate a strongman into every single caper? – but Wager has it that he and Paris often work together as a pair, even though they are so physically mismatched. Of course, this likely made more sense with the original Rollin Hand/Martin Landau of Wager’s original text, rather than the tall and lanky Paris/Leonard Nimoy. 

Despite a brief 128 pages, there’s still a fair amount of padding in Code Name: Little Ivan, mostly due to the scenes featuring one-off East German characters. Also, the caper itself doesn’t unfold with as much tension as on the show. Wager does try to instill a little suspense in some spots, but it comes off as at odds with the show itself, where the capers most always went off without a hitch – even when they seemed to be going wrong, it would turn out to be yet another bit of “5D chess” by mastermind Phelps. Here we have sort of “tense” bits where the machine they plan to use to hide the tank starts leaking water from beneath the big “Lovely Lips” truck and Annabelle must distract the East German guard with some small talk; stuff like that. 

But otherwise there’s no action per se, unlike the previous two novels in the series with their car chases and shootouts. The caper goes down on more of a comedic nature, with Paris – wearing one of the show’s famous “rubber masks” – posing as a Ukranian tank expert and steering it for the awaiting IMF team. Spoiler alert, but just to note it for posterity: the way the IMF team hoodwink the Commies is they have a water-filled rubber replica of the tank, which they leave on the road while Paris drives the real tank into the awaiting Lovely Lips truck. Even here the tone is one of comedy, with an idiotic East German officer insisting one of his men to get on the “tank” the next day, only for the nonplussed soldier to claim the tank is sinking beneath his weight – because it’s a rubber replica filled with water. 

Wager does sort of replicate the moment where the villains realize they’ve been swindled – always one of the highlights of the show – but here, again, it’s mostly comedic, other than an off-page bit where two of the Commies shoot each other due to some IMF hijinkery. But that’s it; the two separate teams drive over the border to West Germany and that’s all she wrote for Code Name: Little Ivan, as well as the Mission: Impossible tie-in series itself. All told this was an okay series, with the caveat that the second and third volumes seemed to be novelizations of an entirely different show.