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 Ben
Clark belongs to the old school of authoritarian fathers, molded by values of
another time, where everything is white or black. Coming from a modest
background, he sees with a suspicious eye the rich and the powerful ones. He
immediately declares his opposition to his son Scott, when he discovers that
this latter dates Gina, an ex-representative of the rich Capwell clan.
But
what Ben hides then is that he has an old account to settle with this family.
Worker on an oil rig belonging to C.C. Capwell, he is poached by Pamela Conrad
after the explosion of the aforementioned oil rig. He helps her then to identify
the one at the origin of what he suspects to be a sabotage. But his relations
with Pamela are going to lead him towards the resurgence of a dark secret which
he is gradually going to discover. Guided by an old photo representing Pamela
and his brother Hal, Ben begins to suspect a link between this latter and the
suspicious disappearance of his brother at the end of the 1950s. It turns out
that Ben saw right : Pamela was formerly Hal's
mistress, and this latter fatally injured during a fight with C.C. in 1958.
Pamela and C.C. find in the boathouse pond what they think of being Hal's
skeleton skull they had hidden at that time.
Encouraged
by Gina, Ben puts district attorney Keith Timmons on Pamela's track. He also
obtains on Pamela's
behalf the confirmation that she and Hal were lovers. Persuaded by her guilt in
his brother's death and discouraged by the lack of action of the police, he
decides to take charge of the events. While Pamela threatens to leave the city,
Ben takes her hostage with C.C. in the cellar of the Capwell mansion. Scott,
helped by Dr. Heather Donnelly, tries in vain to reason with his father. Ben is
stopped in his blind doggedness by Mason Capwell, whom he hurts by a gun shot.
He is imprisoned, without having been able to obtain the slightest confession.
Meanwhile, the secret surrounding Hal's death is revealed : if this latter
really get injured by fighting with C.C., it is Pamela who came to finish him
off by shooting him the next moment, to make sure of his death.
Ben
reappears a few weeks later, in a very bad state. Victim of a cancer affecting
his kidneys, he is near to death. Scott refuses the operation, preferring an
experimental treatment which he considers less dangerous for his father. But in
his absence, Ben feels faint and doctors Arthur Donnelly and Zack Kelton decide
to operate him in a state of emergency. Ben dies on the operating table, in the
absence of his beloved son.
Cruel
fate that Ben Clark's,
loving father but haunted by a family drama having pulled him in a spiral which
will have caused his loss...
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