'''"Operation Missle-Jack"''' [[note]]ミサイルジャック作戦 (''Misslejack Sakusen'') [[/note]] with the English title of '''"Payload"'''. Released by Geneon in 2005 on ''Volume 8: Sweet Betrayals''.

Lupin and his gang have decided to embark on one of their biggest jobs ever: a research center near San Jose, Costa Rica is sending $900 million shipment of diamonds to Puerto Rico via a missile over the Gulf of Mexico. The diamonds must first make it to the research center from police headquarters in San Jose via convoy, a route much simpler to hijack than a mach-5 rocket, and so the gang decides to strike there.

Zenigata arrives at police headquarters the next day, hoping to help keep the shipment out of Lupin's hands. He is greeted by Commissioner Toronbo and shown the contents of the secure case they will be escorting. The two head up the convoy in a police car while Lupin's gang stands by, carefully tracking the path. All goes well until a bridge, where Jigen and Goemon set off explosives on each end that leave the convoy stranded in the middle. As Toronbo orders his men against the thieves, Lupin reveals he has stowed away in an upholstered bench in the back of the armored van. He grabs his prize and hoists it on to the top of the van, where he and it can be picked up by Jigen and Goemon in a helicopter and make a clean getaway.

Back on their boat, the gang opens the case, only to discover its contents are composed entirely of Inspector Zenigata! The inspector in Toronbo's car was a lifelike inflatable dummy, and the diamonds were safely delivered while the gang was busy. Annoyed, the gang manage to send Zenigata overboard and speed off. Lupin is disappointed, but undaunted, and begins new plan: to steal the diamonds off of a speeding rocket.

The next day, the Chief of the research center arrives with his pet tiger in tow. Other than a momentary distraction where the tiger jump into the bushes after hearing rustling there, the leader of the center easily passes security and heads off to work. As he arrives, the diamonds and their secure case are being loaded into the missile under the watchful eyes of Zenigata and Toronbo. Toronbo, as he reviews the route, seems confident Lupin won't be daring enough to try anything else. But as he rants, Jigen and Goemon receive info smuggled out of the research center, courtesy of an undercover Fujiko, about the missile's flight path, as well as the fact it will be flying low to avoid radar. The two thieves note some remote islands along the way...

Back at the research center, Fujiko, armed with a miniature camera in her earring, and Lupin, who managed to tranquilize the tiger in the bushes and replace him with a realistic costume, is now in the chief's office. He has subdued the man, and after a close call with a personal assistant has switched his role to that of the Chief's. Meanwhile, Jigen and Goemon have arrived at the island. While they set up in an old well, Jigen anxiously awaits word about the rocket's launch time from Lupin so the gang can calculate when it will be overhead and they can spring their trap.

Toronbo tells Zenigata as they arrive in the control room that the launch time will be 10:00 AM, but Zenigata spies a suspicious figure among the personnel and manages to reveal Fujiko in disguise, searching her and finding a bug to boot. As she is dragged off to a cell, the two men realize she's relayed information to Lupin and the others the whole time, and the launch will have to be changed. Lupin himself hears Fujiko get captured before Zenigata spitefully crushes the bug, and realizes things have gotten much more complicated, especially after Zenigata and Toronbo change the launch time and encrypt the information. The missile is loaded into place and prepped for launch.

Fujiko realizes she has one last tool at her disposal: the miniature camera hidden in her earring that Zenigata missed in his search. Zenigata arrives to interrogate her to see if she will reveal anything else, but after hearing a signal from Lupin, she takes the opportunity to cozy up to the inspector and place the camera on top of his hat. After she gets what she wants, she causes Zenigata to storm off; Lupin quickly follows to rescue her with key he stole earlier from the guard. While Zenigata head back to the control room to ask for another reset of the launch time and is rebuffed by a stressed Toronbo, Fujiko and Lupin use the camera to spot the launch time on a digital timer: 11:30 AM. They relay the time calculations to Jigen and Goemon.

The rocket launches without a hitch, but as it passes over the remote island, Jigen and Goemon spring the trap. The two have rigged a giant spear inside the well that launches with an elastic band. Thanks to Lupin's calculations, the spear is launched at exactly the right time to pierce the missile... and the diamond's secure case. As the damaged missile careens off course and explodes, the case, securely impaled on the massive spear, embeds itself safely in the ground nearby as the gunman and samurai congratulate themselves on a heist well done and Fujiko and Lupin gleefully drive away from the research center. Meanwhile, as Toronbo freaks out about the suddenly missing missile, Zenigata dejectedly reports his failure, having found the hidden camera on his head and the captured Chief.

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!!''This Episode contains examples of:''

* AccidentalMisnaming: Commissioner Toronbo keeps calling Zenigata "Jonigata" in the Japanese version and "Benihana" in the English dub. Bonus points when the Chief (really Lupin in disguise) insists on calling the Inspector [[MaliciousMisnaming by the wrong name as well]].
* BoundAndGagged: The Chief of the research center for most of the episode. Zenigata doesn't even bother to untie him when he realizes his mistake and that the diamonds are gone.
* FemmeFatale: Fujiko pulls her seduction techniques on Zenigata just so she can get close enough to him to plant a hidden camera on him.
* GoodWithNumbers: Goemon effortlessly calculates the total cost of the diamond shipment while Lupin struggles to carry the one.
* LatexPerfection: Lupin for the Chief. Genre Savvy Inspector Zenigata almost manages to find him out, but Toronbo won't let him pull enough on the Chief's face to give Lupin away. Lupin-as-the-Chief then insists on inspecting them in the same fashion, pulling hard on Zenigata's face.
* MasterOfDisguise: Zenigata mentions that Lupin is this to Toronbo and the Chief, and he's right to be paranoid... Lupin not only disguised himself as the very Chief the Inspector is warning, but as the Chief's pet tiger to sneak inside in the first place.
* MundaneUtility: Goemon uses the blunt edge of Zantetsuken to trigger the plunger that blows up the bridge. He could have just as easily done it by hand.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The Chief of the research center sounds more than a bit like Sean Connery in the English dub; to be fair, there is a faint resemblance.
* PantheraAwesome: The Chief of the research center, for reasons known only to him, has a tiger for a pet that is allowed to walk around without a leash. Its size lets Lupin sneak into the facility in the tiger's place.
* ShamefulStrip: Zenigata does this to Fujiko rather surprisingly, tearing off her shirt in the middle of mission control to look for more bugs. Luckily, he failed to spot the one in her earring...
* VictoriasSecretCompartment: Fujiko has a bug stashed in her cleavage, which Zenigata takes great glee in pulling out and crushing.