In the Wrong Hands: A Spence and Harper Novel

By Victor Mudrick

In 1988 the United States Army Pershing Missile Systems (about 400 strong) were, reportedly, retired from service in Eastern Europe, transported back to the United States and destroyed.

But, how do we know these deadly, nuclear tipped missiles were all actually destroyed? The government has made mistakes before and has even been known to conspire to cover up those mistakes.

In this story of fiction, one of the missiles does get misplaced by the Army and ends up in the hands of people who plan to use it on the population of London.

Spence and Harper, best friends since childhood, are engaged by the president of the United States to retrieve or destroy the threat and eliminate the people involved. At the same time, they are to keep any news of the incident from the world. The rescue plan puts them in the middle of a typhoon on a leaking freighter, in a firefight with elite commandos, at the bottom of the ocean and finally face to face with their arch nemisis Sean Doogan.

The multiple story lines weave an exciting tale all over the Americas and Europe. And tie together in an amazing and unexpected ending. The fun and suspense is non-stop. You will be on the edge of your chair one minute and laughing out loud the next.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 6, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462818969

Victor Mudrick

Vic started his professional career in the late 1960s as a contractor and consultant in the Information Technology business. His first, full time job was programming computers for Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, and the subject of that first work was the readiness of the Pershing Nuclear Missile System. In the late 1980s the Pershing was retired from service and destroyed but was never far from Vic’s thoughts. Vic is now an executive with a major office products company and writes in his spare time ether in Florida or at his vacation home in the mountains of Colorado.

Book preview

IN

THE

WRONG

HANDS

A Spence and Harper Novel

Victor Mudrick

Copyright © 2001 by Victor Mudrick.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

Cover Graphic Courtesy of:

" US Army Aviation and Missile Command Archives"

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CAHPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 39

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Without Ann and the kids in my life this book would not have been even remotely possible. Special thanks to Virginia Wolf for her help and encouragement throughout this venture.

CHAPTER 1

JUNE 5, 1965

FORT SILL, OKLAHOMA

The technician was dresed in a pair of white coveralls with the round insignia of the First Army Corps of Engineers sewn on his back like a bulls-eye. A pair of white protective boots covered his shoes up to the knee, and a cloth helmet with plastic face guard covered his head. A bulky battery pack was strapped to his belt and drove a small fan that hummed softly in his ears.

He was descending slowly to the classified levels. His type of work was performed five or more stories under ground at the Army’s Pershing II P1A Missile facility at the Fort Sill, Oklahoma Artillery Base. The work area assigned to this technician was on the minus five level in a room about the size of a large burial crypt.

Recently, strange feelings of doom had joined the technician as he walked down the long corridors to his assigned job. The premonition of his imminent death grew stronger each day, and the courage to enter the chamber grew weaker. Now he hesitated at the threshold for almost three minutes before he could move forward. One solitary chair was the only sight to greet him as he entered.

The room was about ten feet square with an eight-foot ceiling. Everything was concrete. The door had a one-way mirrored window for the security teams to spy in on him, and he always felt like someone was watching. The floor was painted a light gray, the walls were white and only the four ceiling lights, the air vent and the outline of the door broke the monotony of the chamber. When the door closed behind him there was an eerie silence broken only by the hiss of filtered air being pumped into the room to keep a slightly positive air pressure.

He started through his normal daily routine. The stainless steel padded case holding the nearly completed gyro pod was the first thing he unpacked. It took five minutes to extricate the device from the security of its case. He often wondered why they had designed such an impenetrable case to transport and store the device, but today, unlike most days, other thoughts crowded his consciousness.

As the technician continued working his attention uncharacteristically wandered to the evening before. He subconsciously feared the events of the previous night were somehow linked to his death premonition but he could not make the connection in his conscious mind. It was not often a woman approached him at his favorite bar and struck up a conversation. As a matter of fact it had never happened before. Maybe the sheer rarity of the circumstance was the only reason for his feelings of dread. But dread or not he had to see her again, tonight.

He was a less than average looking man, homely in fact, five and a half feet tall with brown hair and brown eyes. His nose was large and his chin was small. He looked like a caricature of a man. There was very little about him that attracted the opposite sex, but the woman last night seemed enchanted with him. Her attraction to him was perplexing, but he craved the company of a woman so badly he was blind to any other thoughts.

She was beautiful with dark hair and blue/green eyes. She had a wonderful body and she allowed him to sample some of her pleasures. What amazing luck he thought as he returned his focus back to his job.

The gyro package he had been working on for weeks was nearly completed and he would soon escort it to the main site where the various subassemblies for the Pershing Missile were certified for flight and assembled into the final product. He took the journey to the main site every three to four weeks.

His thoughts returned to his task as he rotated the elbow shaped assembly arm around on its hinge from the back of the assembly cart to the front and locked it into place with a distinctive thud. There was a slight echo in the tiny room and the thud always came twice. The assembly cart was an engineering marvel within itself. It was designed for this single purpose and he was specially trained for this single job. The cart was six feet long, four feet tall and about eighteen inches deep. It had fourteen small drawers on the front and six cupboard type locking cabinets on the back. Each drawer and cabinet was designed to hold a specific set of components for the assembly of this specific gyro cluster design. The cost of each of the carts was rumored to be $40, 000.

He removed the gyro cluster from its steel case and placed it on the assembly arm’s vertical post. He tightened the thumbscrews and tested the fit to make sure it was secure. It would be a disaster if he dropped the unit this close to its completion. He paused to admire his work.

The cluster was spherical in shape, weighed thirty-two pounds when completed and was about eight inches in diameter. It had six small bulges spaced evenly around its outer perimeter protecting the gyro mechanisms inside. There was a series of small fittings near the bottom of the sphere to connect the compressed air hoses that would ultimately bring the unit to life for its one and only flight. Compressed air rushing in through the hoses at ten cubic feet per second would rotate each gyro wheel on a cushion of air and spin it up to its optimum 36, 000 RPM in less than 10 seconds.

He stared with pride at his handiwork, the heart of the guidance system for the Pershing II missile. It was hard to believe that it contained over eight hundred parts, took three weeks to build and would only live for 26 minutes before it helped vaporize two square miles of earth. He had a clear memory of the training class he had attended on the missile and the words of the instructor.

The gyro cluster is the single most important element of the missile’s guidance system, the instructor had said. The Pershing missile can only hit its target if the gyro mechanism works perfectly. Even the slightest deviation can land the warhead many miles from its target. Once the solid fuel of the rocket engine is ignited nothing can stop its trip to devastation. During the flight the gyros spinning at 36, 000 RPM remain in constant orientation relative to the earth. If the missile drifts off course even the slightest the gyro cluster detects the movement and commands are sent to the control surfaces to adjust the flight. These constant flight corrections are what allow the Pershing missile to hit its target to within four hundred yards four hundred and forty miles out.

The technician was surprised at how clearly he remembered that first lecture.

"If the gyro mechanism fails to keep the missile on its suborbital trajectory the warhead might barbecue herds of cattle instead of vaporizing legions of soldiers, « the instructor had droned on. «In the worst case scenario if the warhead’s reentry through the earth’s atmosphere is not exactly as expected it will either burn up or not arm itself. An unarmed warhead traveling at mach 4 will make a sixteen inch diameter hole in the ground and a dull thud. «

The technician brought his mind back to the present and reached for a small screw to secure the top of the last section of the external housing cover. This was the last part to be installed before the unit was air tight and ready for its external connections. This screw and seven more like it would be torqued into place to seal the unit from all outside contaminants. Even the slightest speck of dust in the wrong place could render the missile a dud. The technician prided himself on his ability to remember the exact specifications and procedures for every step of the process, but today his concentration was being invaded by images from the night before.

Almost in a daze, he set the torque wrench and slid the first screw in place through the cover and into the frame of the sphere. He twisted the tiny screw until it was seated against the frame and continued turning the wrench, waiting for the click of the ratchet that would indicate it had reached the specified. 6 pounds.

To his surprise the wrench continued moving until the screw broke loose and turned freely in its recess. This brought his concentration back to full focus. Damn! He had just ruined three weeks work and destroyed $220, 000 worth of government property. How could this be happening, not today, of all days? He looked at the wrench and instantly recognized his mistake. He had set 6 pounds into the torque control instead of. 6 pounds. It was going to take hours and hours to fill out all the paperwork this kind of mistake would generate and he would be personally responsible for setting the entire Pershing missile production schedule back three weeks.

He pulled some tweezers from the tool drawer and removed the screw from its small hole. What he saw made his spirits sink even further. Only half of the threaded end of the screw came out which meant the rest of the screw was still down there blocking the hole. His stomach felt like lead and his hands were shaking as he inserted the end of a tiny awl into the hole against the broken fragment and tapped. Three taps was all it needed… the screw fragment turned once and dropped down into the sphere. He saw it disappear almost like it was in slow motion.

The Army Missile Command had put so much time and expense into keeping even the smallest particle of dust from entering the sphere and now he had dropped the equivalent of a boulder into the center of the unit.

The technician hesitated for a few seconds, wondering if the MPs were looking through the window watching him. If they discovered his mistake he would be detained for hours and he would not be able to see her tonight. He had to do something…. he made his decision. The screw fragment that dropped into the guidance system cluster would stay right where it was. He would not mention it to anyone until she was finished with him, for he knew her interest in him could not last. Then he would take whatever consequences the Army wanted to hand out, but not today.

During the rest of the shift he completed the housing with one screw torqued in well under specification. Tomorrow he would finish the electrical harness and prepare the cluster for transfer to the component testing center.

He could not keep his thoughts from wandering to the night before. He could not concentrate on anything else. Why had she wanted to know so much about his work? He hoped she was just fascinated with him and wanted to know all she could about him. He couldn’t bare to think of any other reason.

NOON THE NEXT DAY (JUNE 6, 1965)

The gyro pod was complete and the technician was packing it securely into its airtight protective stainless steel case. He laced extra strapping through the buckles and pulled them all as tight as he could. If things were on schedule in the other underground chambers throughout the complex, many straps were securing many subassemblies this morning.

The helicopter would arrive at precisely 1: 00 p. m. to transport the various packages and technicians to the main site for component turnovers to the testing corps. The trip would take about thirty minutes and the pilot’s route always took them over the artillery range. The range was the Army’s primary testing ground for its heavy ordinance, and was located in some of the most desolate dry lands in the Oklahoma desert. They had made the trip many times. Security in the artillery range was not an issue. Only a fool would venture into the area on foot with its entire 383 mile perimeter prominently marked with signs declaring the dangers of live shells and unexploded mines. Radar constantly scanned the sky to keep stray planes out of the classified and restricted air space. A wing of Army fighters was always on ready alert to repel the stray plane that might cross into the no-fly zone during a training exercise.

The technician climbed into the helicopter and took his place in the front of the cargo compartment, facing to the rear directly under the pilot and copilot. The case holding his flawed gyro cluster was his chair. Eight other men boarded the craft with their various subassemblies in tow and after a short wait the clumsy looking flying machine lifted off and tilted toward the technician’s back. He had thirty minutes with nothing to do but think about her and eat the surprise lunch she had prepared.

He couldn’t believe the turn his life was taking. He had a girlfriend for the first time in his 36 years. Last night she had spent the night at his apartment and in the morning she presented this lunch box to him with instructions not to look inside until he was on the helicopter.

She had said. If you open it sooner it will spoil my surprise.

He knew he had violated a dozen security rules last night answering her many questions about his job, but right now he didn’t care.

He waited until the chopper leveled off and was roaring across the desert before he lifted the first latch on the front of the lunch box. The noise and vibrations from the twin 1200 horsepower engines and the huge rotor blades blocked out all other sound. It was strange how much silence could exist in such clamor.

He lifted the second latch on the front of the box and rotated the cover, exposing the inside. The note on top was not what he was expecting.

Fascist Pigs.

He was trying to figure out what this meant when a small spring popped up and the technician’s pitiful life was over in an instant. Three sticks of dynamite in the lunch box came to life in his lap and propelled his body in a dozen directions. A red mist hung in the air momentarily as most of him was vaporized by the intensity of the explosion.

The men on each side of his seat were blown through the side panels of the chopper and tumbled through the air like mannequins dumped from the top of a building. The explosion should have destroyed the chopper instantly but because the lunch box was in his lap his body absorbed the main blast. Most of the remaining force was propelled sideways through the now gaping holes in the port and starboard sides of the cargo compartment.

The gyro pod, securely encased in its stainless steel protective home was blasted through the floor of the compartment and started a free-fall toward the desert.

The remaining six men in the compartment were killed instantly by the concussion and their bodies bounced about the cargo bay like life size puppets as the helicopter was jolted left then right. The pilot’s compartment was well above the explosion, but the windows were blown out and the controls were frozen. The vibration was tremendous. The pilot tried frantically to right the big beast and only just succeeded in time to keep the machine from crashing into the desert.

The pilot’s ears were gushing blood from the locations his eardrums had occupied a few seconds earlier and only one eye seemed to be working. The pain in his head was almost unbearable.

One look to his right and the pilot knew he would be getting no help from the copilot. A foot long piece of the communications bay had been propelled up though the bulkhead like a spear and had passed through the copilot’s body to project six inches out his forehead. He sat upright at attention, with his mouth open like he was about to say something, but there was no life in his eyes.

The pilot turned his fading attentions back to the dying machine. He was fifteen hundred feet off the ground and falling like a stone. If he didn’t slow his decent he would be smashed to mush on the desert rocks. He pulled on the elevator control with all the remaining strength in his left arm and it slowly moved upward. The plummeting decent slowed but the vibrations grew worse. Just as the helicopter’s three wheels were about to reach the ground one of the rotors let loose and flew across the desert like a huge boomerang clearing a thirty foot wide swath. The remaining four blades were badly out of balance and set up a tremendous shaking motion. The chopper bounced down like it had been dropped from 30 feet in the air and shook wildly, but it held together. The jolt bounced the pilot out of his seat and suspended him in the air for seconds. The chopper bounced back down and the pilot may have been saved if he had pressed hard on the brakes, but the disabled machine rolled backwards twelve inches after it finally settled on its wheels.

A Mark-9 antitank mine that had long ago been forgotten accepted the weight of the nose wheel as the plane rolled to a stop and was triggered instantly. The force lifted the shaking, crippled chopper up by the nose and sent it flipping over backwards. The pilot was thrown into the air again. He vaguely wondered why his seat belt was not working. The four remaining rotor blades pounded against the rocks and broke into hundreds of ricocheting projectiles. One came through the open window of the cockpit striking the pilot just below the chin as he tumbled in the cramped space. He never felt the impact.

When the chopper came back to earth it was upside down with its full fuel tanks exposed to the rocky desert. The impact of the airframe against the rocks ruptured the fuel tanks and spewed the cool liquid onto the exposed engines. The combination was spectacular and visible for miles.

The Army Search and Rescue team that was dispatched to the crash site found the burned out craft and the mangled remains of ten men. The eleventh man (the technician) was not found. It was assumed that he was the saboteur and the investigation went no further. The final report was accurate as it listed the technician disappeared without a trace.

The only salvage from the day’s ruin was the single stainless steel case with the gyro pod inside. It was found three hundred yards from the main crash site with only minor visible damage. It was returned to the Army Missile Command Center for evaluation. The human remains from the crash were removed and given military burials with honors. The burned out hulk was left for target practice and was pulverized by dozens of sorties from Air Force fighters practicing air to ground support.

The Army’s quality inspection team received the dented case holding the gyro cluster and found the subassembly completely intact. They tested it and found it to be in A1 condition so it was x-rayed, classified and certified for service. Three weeks later it was installed in the guidance system of Pershing missile #0916 and deployed to Germany in 1966. All knowledge of its tiny flaw was lost with the vaporization of the technician.

CHAPTER 2

MARCH 7, 1997

SANTIAGO, CHILE

The two casually dressed men had been traveling in first class for half a day and all night and were headed to the last leg of a trip from their offices in Farmington, Connecticut to Asuncion, Paraguay. Despite they’re almost twenty-two hours of travel they both looked rested and alert. Their clothes were wrinkle free thanks to a quick stop in the travel lounge and there was a bounce in their step. The first plane they had taken, a Boeing 737-200, left Hartford’s Bradley International Airport at 2:30 p.m. the previous afternoon on a nonstop to Miami International Airport. From there they boarded an American Airlines 767-300 to Santiago, Chile on the twelve-hour red eye flight that had just arrived at 6:30 am local time. They moved quickly to get to their final and what would prove to be their most interesting flight of the journey.

People stared curiously as the tall foreigners walked swiftly through the terminal, weaving left and right to avoid other travelers. The two men cleared customs uneventfully, gathered their carry on bags, hailed a taxi and headed to a small airport on the Pacific coast just east of Santiago. They were scheduled to meet up with their equipment at 0700 local time.

Although the traffic in Santiago is some of the worst in the world, it was early and they were headed away from the rush so they found themselves in