The Torpedo

By Charles S. Clark

John Powers, the president elect of Advanced Ferrites, a company under investigation for stock fraud instigated by the Russian mafia, is asked to make a quick trip on behalf of the new Chairman to Russia to meet the Russian stock holder and obtain documented approval for his new position. John is received by the powerful Russian who uses utmost charm and sincerity to lull him into a false sense of security.
Little does he know that he has the key to a massive espionage plot. Unbeknownst to him, he possesses a secret disk that totally exposes the plot. He is to be put out of commission by a ruse at the airport concerning plans for a nuclear torpedo. Languishing in a Russian jail without hope, it becomes the task of his family to rescue him. Clark, his cousin in-law, intervenes and along with John’s daughter Karen, travel to Germany to come up with a rescue plan. With the help of German friends, they manage to get John to Budapest where the Bahnburner is used to make a daring and very dangerous escape to Vienna ... and the rest of the story is ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles S. Clark
• Release date: Sep 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990352631

Charles S. Clark

I am a retired instrumentation engineer specializing in medical electronics with a lifelong interest in hot rods and high performance cars. I do total restorations of rare classic cars. I currently have restored a 1940 Lincoln Continental convertible which is one of 300 made. Proud to say that it took First place Concourse at the Early Ford V8 Club 50th anniversary meet. I also have restored two 1955 Chrysler C 300 both to factory original specs including the dual four barrel hemis. In my book you will read about the 1940 Ford coupe that I own. I leave it to you to sort fact from fiction as the six stories that you read involve a lot of very authentic action with this car passing from owner to owner each time with a special adventure. Be prepared to run bootleg whiskey in North Carolina and race an old Nazi on the German autobahn. (disastrous result). You will discover that I know a lot of authentic details about the flathead Ford engine and I have been to all the places mentioned in the book. So join the old engineer and go back in time for reading adventure. (Women like the book)

Book preview

The Torpedo

Charles S. Clark

© 2014 Charles S. Clark. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, recording, or photocopying without written permission the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations where permission is specifically granted by the publisher or author.

Photo Credit: 1994 Mercedes Benz S600

Courtesy of Mercedes Benz Archives

For bulk sales contact the publisher or author at:

Flathead Press.com

6626 S. Lafayette St.

Centennial CO 80121

Illustrations: Darrell Mayabb, Automotive Graffiti

Cover Design: Darrell Mayabb, Automotive Graffiti; and Nick Zelinger, NZ Graphics

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Publisher: Flathead Press

Publishing Consultant: Judith Briles, The Book Shepherd

Editor: John Maling, Editing By John

Every man should be so lucky as to have a wife like my Sara who has been my faithful love for 53 years so it is fitting that I dedicate this book to her.

Note from the Author

During the startup phase of our medical electronic business, Sara and I drove coast to coast and border to border twice in one year. So what do you do you in the middle of Kansas on cruise control? You think about the people that you know and what fun it would be to write a story and put them in it.

The names you see within each story are, for the most part, actual people cast in very unusual circumstances. I have been asked by some manuscript readers if these stories are really true. Of course they are.

It is just that I made up some of the facts and certain things have yet to happen.

Oh yes, the ’40 Ford Standard coupe is very real.

I bought it 1954 for $500 from Wally who you will meet in Part 2 of The Bootlegger ’40 Ford. As you will find out every time it changes hands, $500 is exchanged.

Now at age 81, I look back in time and sometimes wonder how I ever got to be this old. I did not transport illegal whiskey and I was not a race car driver, but I did go like hell in a ’40 Ford hot rod (and still do). Guess I was just lucky to make it this far.

So … go pedal to the metal with me and enjoy the stories.

Contents

The Torpedo:

Enjoying the Good Life

John Meets with the Board

Tomeshenko

Journey to Russia

Corporate Vision

The Post-Lunch Meeting

The Torpedo

A Family Affair

Meeting with Big Al

The Apartment

Karlsruhe

The Plan

Michael Reibel

The Plan

The Moscow Jail

Ivan and Michael Meet

Caravans

Execute

The Two Hundred Pound Shield

Needle in the Haystack

The Unraveling

About the Author

In the previous adventure,The Wasserwagon, a starting new engine technology is developed using the 1940 Ford as a decoy test vehicle. It is the rebuilt now famous Bahnburner car that became an underground legend following the disastrous autobahn race. A clone car identical to the original test car is created and it is now in Denver with me. A fateful call is received with tremendous implications. You will learn what happens as the story progresses. C. S. Clark

The Torpedo:

The Strange Odyssey of a $500 Car

CHAPTER ONE

Enjoying the Good Life

The months pass and Sara and I are really having a good time. We are invited to go on a lot of tours because the car clubs, of which there are many, all want to see the Bahnburner replica that we used as a cover car for the development of the new BMW engine that runs on water. There are still several years of development before that fantastic design will become a production reality. In the meantime, manufacturers keep building conventional gasoline burning engines. We either drive the new BMW M5 that is a company car loaned to us, or we drive the old Ford with its potent Ardun engine. The Ford is always the center of attention. We share it with John and Karyn Hager so they too can have some fun. After all it is as much John’s car as mine. The car, and to a certain extent John and I are international celebrities. Clytia Schwenger has done almost too good a public relations job. She not only told the full story of the BMW engine development scenario but she also helped fuel the underground story about my duel with von Braunschweiger on the autobahn. I would just as soon that the story dies, as the memories are not at all pleasant.

After returning from Germany, I have to have my back operated on again to clear out the debris that has accumulated since the first operation when I was twenty-six years old. A ruptured disk is a souvenir of my Air Force days. After forty years of not many problems, I really don’t have a gripe. The operation is not altogether successful for, while the severe leg pains stop, I am left with a partially paralyzed foot that forces me to limp with a condition called drop-foot. For once the medical profession gave a straightforward name to a problem rather than cloak it with some Latin gibberish. I am supposed to wear a leg brace, but it is too damn uncomfortable. Instead I bought a pair of military combat boots which, while not very stylish, allows me to walk with minimum limp.

I tire easily but we can go at our own pace and just rest when it suits us. It is nice to be retired and not have the demands of work driving me. Sara and I are prepared to keep on chugging for just as long as we can, even if we do have to throttle back a little every now and then.

The Urgent Phone Call

We just returned home from the Colorado Grand tour. I always wanted to drive on it, but it is a bucks-up deal for the big boys of the car collector world and I was not on the invitation list until the BMW story broke. We took a week to tour the Colorado high country during the gorgeous fall season, stopping at small towns and ski resorts along the way. The cars all really belong in museums; they are so rare and special. A million dollar Ferrari Testa Rosa would follow the Abe Jenkins Duesenberg or a Bugatti race car. What a sight to see these priceless cars in full song on a public highway, what fun to be with people who appreciate what they have and are not afraid to use the cars as intended when they were built. The ’40 Ford can hold its own with any of them, even if it did, just like me, have a very humble beginning.

Entering the door I hear the faint beep-beep of the answering machine. It is my uncle Don asking me to call him as soon as I can. I come from a very small family so I know my few relatives quite well. My mother’s brother, Don Sutherland, is a vigorous eighty-one year old, retired from lifelong employment at DuPont. He was part of the old era when the company reciprocated employee loyalty. Global competition had not dug its fangs into his workplace turning everything and everybody into units to be created and dissolved in accordance with some algorithm that maximized profitability.

He helped start up their paint pigment plant in Camden, Tennessee, and settled down there with his now deceased wife Marge to raise two girls and a boy. They are my cousins Sally, Tina and Doug. I occasionally hear from Don and we had all just been together at Christmas for a rare family reunion. His generation was trained to make sparse use of the telephone. When he was young, long-distance calls were awkward to place through local operators and small phone companies. They were also very expensive for a depression era family. Five minutes of talk and then hang up was the old rule. His conversations are still terse even though now economics do not matter.

Don, this is Charlie. I just got your message. Is there a problem? I was in dread that there might be some calamity in the family.

Charlie, thanks for calling. I am a little upset by a phone call from Tina. I don’t know quite what to make of it and wanted to talk with you. She said she doesn’t know where John is.

What do you mean, Don? John is a stable guy; he wouldn’t just run off without telling Tina.

John, is John Powers, Tina’s husband. A handsome, well-built, middle-aged man of calm demeanor who could be stern when the situation demanded. In short, he is a fine husband and good businessman. John, like Don, also worked for DuPont in the personnel department. I’m sorry. I should say the Human Relations Department. For as surely as relations became less human, the names became more glorified. John worked under a very different set of ground rules than did Don.

John often had the melancholy task of informing employees about layoffs and helping ease the strain of losing a job and perhaps a life style. It was just a matter of time before John’s job was thrown into the corporate downsizing, er, excuse me, rightsizing, meat grinder to come out the other end unemployed. DuPont is not vicious in its treatment of upper level, white-collar pink slippers. He got a decent severance pay and help in finding a new job. Nevertheless, with Emily in high school and Karyn in College, it was an anxious time for the Powers’ household.

Actually, John had no real worries, for he is a very desirable commodity in the workplace. DuPont provided him a lot of exposure to a great many facets of corporate operations. He has, in effect, received a practical post-graduate course in business management. While the leviathans like DuPont roll on looking for greener and cheaper pastures to feed their huge appetite for production and profit, the smaller, more nimble companies are innovating new technologies and markets. Some will become the DuPonts of the future. The successful companies often do not have the ability to manage a rapidly expanding work force. Good managers like John are needed if they are to continue to grow. Last year one of these companies, Advanced Ferrites Inc., made John an excellent offer to become their Director of Human Resources. More about that later.

Well Don, Tina must have some idea where he is. I suspect he is on an urgent business trip where the pace of business is very fast and he simply hasn’t had the opportunity to tell Tina what’s going on. I know that has happened to Sara and me, and she too would get upset.

"I hear you, Charlie, and