A Disruptive Invention

by Peter Shackle

  “We also need to think more deeply about accident recovery,” suggested Reginald. “It’s all very well having a patch to put over a meteorite hole, but that’s no use unless you can replenish the air. So we need a bottle of regular air mixture which can be operated manually sufficient to repressurize the vehicle say, three times over. You can get controllers with sensors so that normal air pressure is automatically restored. We could even leave it running permanently to top up for any leaks which might exist around the doors, for example. Then we need to hook it into the main control panel so that if excessive amounts of air are being lost an alarm can be triggered.”

  “Sounds great to me,” said John. “How long will it take to get all this installed?”

  “It will all depend on how much we can scrounge,” said Reginald. “I’ll know in a day or two and I think that we will have a good chance to have it working in time for the December test flight.”

  Just then John’s cell phone rang. “Hello? Dad? What’s up – I am in a work meeting right now,” said John into the phone. “Who took Mom away? police? They said it was because of me? That’s ridiculous. Call up the county police and demand to know what is going on. I’ll give you a call from my place when I get home tonight!”

  John felt a terrible sense of fear and foreboding creep over his body. “That was my father back on the farm in Iowa. He said that police came to the house and arrested my mother because she had knowledge of something that I had done!”

  “That’s terrible,” said Reginald. “I expect it must be an awful misunderstanding and mistake.”

  “Can you excuse me please?” John asked of his colleagues. “My parents have got a problem and they need my help. I have to make some phone calls.” Without saying anything more he swiftly left the room and returned to his apartment.

  Back at his place, John called his father back again using his landline phone which was cheaper. “Dad, I’m in private back in my apartment now. Tell me what has happened.”

  “We were just finishing lunch,” explained his Dad. “Suddenly there was a knock at the door and there was this man in what looked like a police uniform asking for Mrs. Sykes. He said that there had been an incident involving John Sykes in Huntsville and that he needed Mom to come and make a statement at the police station. He was insistent that I was not needed, and that she would be back in two hours. That was at one p.m. and now it is four.”

  John was experiencing a creeping feeling all over his back as he heard this.

  I called the county sheriff and the State Police, and neither of them knew anything about it,” continued his Dad.

  “What are they recommending?” asked John.

  “They are saying that it is a case of police impersonation and kidnapping,” said his father. “They are coming here to interview me in a few minutes, but I don’t know anything more than what I have just told you.”

  John was remembering the shooting of Tony, and his fists clenched at the thought of what could be going on. “Well, keep me posted on what you learn!” he said. “I’ll keep my cell phone on me and charged up.”

  He put down the phone and paced around his apartment, worried sick about his mother. Images of their modest little farmhouse back in the Iowa corn fields flooded through his mind. He thought of pivotal moments from his childhood when she had been there for him, always loving, always caring and always so proud of his achievements. To send him to University at Cal State Long Beach had been a tremendous financial strain for his parents, and when Electrolev finally went public John had every intention of repaying them for it. “I’m so proud of you, John,” his mother’s words went through his mind over and over again, driving him almost insane with worry.

  Just then his phone rang. John snatched it up. “Hello”, he barked into the mouthpiece.

  “Is that John Sykes?” enquired a voice with a heavy Asian accent that he could not identify.

  “Yes, that’s me. Who is calling?” replied John.

  “You can call me Adolpho. All you need to know is that I have got your mother here. Here – talk to him.”

  “John – they have got me tied up in this place!” came his mother’s voice.

  “That’s enough!” said Adolpho. “Now, your mother is going to be perfectly safe if you do what I say. I want you to bring me the complete plans for the Delia vehicle. You can put them onto disks. When I have got them, then your mother can go free, it is as simple as that. But if you say one word to anybody, then your mother is dead. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t have access to the whole plans,” replied John. “Nobody does. The responsibility is compartmentalized and there are firewalls between the sections. Inside them It is further subdivided. If we want to work on interacting parts then people from the highest security level involved have to be present to put in their passwords. Even though I am the President of Electrolev, technically I myself only have access to the power electronic converters.”

  “That’s too bad. You may never see your mother again,” said Adolpho softly. John was perspiring under his arms. He could feel moisture dripping down his body and his mouth went dry.

  “Tell you what; I’ll exchange myself for her freedom. I have almost all the knowledge about Delia in my own head.” blurted John. There was a moment’s silence, and in the background John could hear his mother sobbing which wrenched at his heart strings.

  “All right,” said Adolpho, “That is a deal. Be at the gate of the marina which is on South Shore Promenade in Baltimore inner harbor at precisely 6 p.m. tomorrow. Your mother will be there and she can go free if you come with me. Remember that you are being watched. If you say one word to anybody else then your mother dies.”

  “All right then,” said John, his voice cracking with emotion. The line went dead with a slight click. John just stood there holding the disconnected phone, hardly able to move because he was so shocked.

  Eventually he got up, went over to his computer, and looked up the route from Huntsville to Baltimore Inner Harbor. Then he selected some clothes for the morning and set his alarm clock for 4 a.m. He lay in bed and tried to sleep, but it felt like he was mainly tossing and turning as his mind went over the terrible conflict facing him.

  Chapter 47

  Saturday morning John got out of bed after the worst night’s sleep he had ever had, but quickly felt energized as he contemplated the challenge ahead of him. He put on blue jeans, check shirt and a leather jacket with white sneakers and headed out to his car. He drove a 2004 Camry which had a built in GPS. He spent a few minutes while the car warmed up in the cold pre-dawn air, typing in his destination in Baltimore. He waved a familiar salute to the guards at the gate of the Arsenal as he came out onto Goss Road and then turned north up Patton road towards highway 565. Stopping briefly to pick up a coke and egg Mac muffin, he settled into his long and fateful journey, squinting into the rising sun before him in the east. He was feeling determined and energized to do what he felt he had to do. He was hopeful that he was worth much more to the kidnappers alive than he was dead, and that somehow he was going to survive whatever lay ahead of him.

  That morning Judy had a leisurely sleep in, and then after her morning shower she thoughtfully chose the clothes for her date with John that afternoon. She decided to put on her best designer jeans, together with a figure hugging brown turtle neck sweater and a pair of brown sneakers. She fixed herself brunch and skimmed through the Huntsville Times with WAFF droning on in the background.

  By 2 o’clock she had everything tidied up and was sitting in happy anticipation waiting for John to turn up. She knew John to be a punctuality fanatic, and when 2 p.m. came round and he had not shown up, she called his apartment, which was only at the other end of the building. She felt a sinking feeling when there was no answer. After a half hour she walked around the building, looked and saw that John’s Camry was not there. So she pulled out her cell phone and called him. She heard the phone ringing and ringing, and then it went to the answering machine. “Joh
n – where the hell are you?” said Judy. “We supposed to be going out this afternoon and you are not answering your phone. Please call me!” Judy was feeling a sickness deep in her stomach. Something had gone terribly wrong. She thought back with a shudder to the disappearance of Tony, and winced inwardly.

  Acting on instinct, she went round to the apartment where James Harper and his wife were living. She rang the bell and James’ wife Betsy answered the door. “Hello Judy – you look so upset – whatever is the matter? Come inside and tell me what’s going on.”

  James was also home and he and Betsy sat down on their sofa across the coffee table from the distraught Judy, She explained the whole story of the date they were planning for that afternoon which meant so much to them, and how John did not show up. His Camry was missing, and even though his cell phone was ringing, John was not answering.

  James looked really serious. He knew the history of Electrolev as well as Judy, and it was not for nothing that he had brought all the Electrolev staff to live inside the Redstone Arsenal, surrounded by razor wire fences and armed guards. Knowing John and Judy well as he did by now, and respecting their personal integrity, he knew that something must be seriously amiss. “I have never told you this, but we have pretty good security here inside the Arsenal. Every vehicle going into or out of the base is photographed. Every land line phone call into or out of the base is recorded. So we can have quite a bit to go on.” He picked up a phone and dialed through to the base security office: “Hello – this is Major General James Harper – the President of Electrolev here in the Arsenal has vanished from his apartment. I want to review phone records and entry/exit records for him for the last 24 hours.” Turning to Judy he said: “Let’s get over to the base security office.”

  James and Judy drove together in James’ car the short distance across to the security office. The officer in charge, Randall Binks, was a short man with the conventional military buzz cut and the uniform of an army captain. The time was now 3 p.m. on Saturday. He started working on the phone records himself, and assigned a subordinate to look for entry and exit records for John Sykes. It took only a few minutes before the three of them were listening in horror to John’s conversation with Adolpho. A few moments later the subordinate came across with a picture of the front of John’s Camry, time stamped 5.45 a.m., with John waving to the guards in his familiar fashion as he left the gates.

  James said: “In Baltimore it is one hour ahead of Huntsville time so it is 4 p.m. there. We have got two hours to do something. I am going to get on to the Baltimore police to see if we can head this thing off.”

  Judy said: “Excuse me, I am not feeling good. I need to go and rest.”

  Binks immediately said: “Thompson – drive her back to the Sparkman Center please!”

  Back at her place, Judy immediately called Terry Mettle. She explained that there was a problem because John had gone missing. “Can I come over and see you?” she requested.

  “Of course,” replied Terry.

  At his apartment, Judy explained the whole story. It was now 3.15 “I want to take Delia across to Baltimore to rescue John`!” said Judy. “But we can’t just fly off in her,” replied Terry. “You are supposed to file flight plans. I got torn off a strip for just flying Charlotte around the base, let alone Delia. We would both be thrown off the project for pulling a stunt like that!”

  “If we don’t do it there probably will be no project!” responded Judy. Her voice was rising to the point where she was practically screaming at Terry: “Those bastards did away with my Tony last year and now they have got John! I’m not going to let them get away with it! Delia is the most advanced surveillance and rescue vehicle in the whole world. We can watch what is happening and rescue John if there is a chance. If you don’t fly me then I am going to take Delia 1 myself. I know that she is fully fuelled up and ready to fly!”

  Terry looked torn and conflicted. He knew and respected Judy and John. He knew the rules that he was hired to abide by. His muscles tightened all over as he thought through the conflict and realized that he could not be loyal to both parties at once. “OK, I’ll do it for you and John,” he said. “Let’s get over to the hangar right away!” The two of them left the apartment block at a jog, running towards the hangar half a mile away. They showed their badges to the guards, which had the highest possible clearances on them, and once inside Terry went and started up Delia 1 while Judy opened the hangar doors sufficiently to let a Delia through. Then Judy quickly climbed inside with Terry, pulled up the ladder and slammed the hatch door. Terry lifted Delia up a couple of feet and slowly taxied her out through the open hangar doors. It was now 3.30 p.m. as he retracted the undercarriage.

  “We can minimize the problems with airspace by going up to 50,000 feet, outside the areas used by commercial aircraft, and transmitting a transponder ID corresponding to a military experimental flight.” Said Terry. “At least that way we will not be outraging the civilian air traffic controllers for more than a few moments, and it will take a while for the military to cotton on to the fact that we are not authorized.”

  With the Auxiliary power unit humming, Delia made its usual elevator imitation as she smoothly rose up for 15 minutes. At 3.45 p.m. she reached 50,000 feet and Terry applied full forward thrust. Since Delia was not using wings in any normal sense of the word, she was able to slip smoothly through the sound barrier as she moved up to her full cruising speed of 1000 miles per hour. The ride inside was slightly bumpy because even without wings, weather systems outside could still buffet the little vehicle from time to time. Both Terry and Judy donned seat belts. It was around 4.30 p.m. Huntsville time, 5.30 p.m. Baltimore time that Delia was on station over Baltimore Inner Harbor.

  Chapter 48

  Judy plucked up her courage and called up James on her cell phone. They had just kidnapped a vehicle upon which $200M had been spent so far in development, which should have been bad enough to feel guilty about. “James, this is Judy. I have taken Delia 1 for a test flight and we are over the Baltimore Inner Harbor parked at a height of 50,000 feet. I think I might be able to help rescue John. We have got the South Promenade Marina on our surveillance screen and we can see everything. The sun is just setting here but we have got a really good view of the place.”

  James was amazingly unflappable. He did not even comment on the hijacking of Delia. “I’m in contact with the Baltimore police. The bad news is that tonight they are having a swat team formation practice in Riverside Park, and there is hardly anybody left on duty for regular law enforcement purposes. The good news is that Riverside Park is only about a mile away from the South Promenade Marina. They have sent an officer in a patrol car over to the parking lot by the Marina, and he is stopped by the toll booth at the entrance. He can’t see anything unusual going on but he is staying on station there.”

  “Yes, I can see the patrol car,” said Judy.

  After a few minutes she exclaimed: “There is a tan colored car pulling into the parking lot. He just got a ticket from the toll booth. That could be John!”

  “I’ll pass that on,” responded James.

  “Now he has got out of the car and gone across to the gateway leading into the Marina. Hey, two people have just got out of a car parked right adjacent to the Marina edge and are walking across to the gateway. I can see the police officer leaving his car and going towards them. Something must be happening, because he has suddenly stopped short of the gateway.”

  Meanwhile down on the ground, John had walked across the parking lot to the Marina gateway and immediately saw a Korean looking man dragging his mother coming towards him. The man said: “I’ve got a gun here. Give me your hands and let me cuff them so I know you will not disappear.” John offered his arms together and the man who he now realized must be Adolpho swiftly snapped nylon ties around his wrists. “OK Mrs. Sykes, you can go now,” said Adolpho. Then looking up he saw the police officer coming towards him. “I have got a gun! You stop right there or I will kill Mr. Sykes
,” shouted Adolpho. “Mrs. Sykes, get out of here!. Officer – go back to your car or I will kill him”

  The Baltimore police officer started backing towards his car, talking rapidly into a microphone on his lapel. When John’s mother reached him, he bundled her into his patrol car. Meanwhile Adolfo prodded John with his gun onto the walkway of the Marina, and after a short distance he said: “Get into this,” gesturing towards a small speed boat tied up at one of the berths. He quickly undid the boat, started the motor and slowly backed the it out of the berth. After a few seconds he engaged forward gear and gunned the engine to push the boat out into the main shipping channel, with John sitting forlornly near the front, his hands secured with the nylon ties.

  Inside the patrol car, officer Zuckman was talking with John’s mother. “Tell me quickly what is happening,” he commanded.

  “That man Adolpho seems to work for some foreign government. He wants the design information for some secret flying gizmo that my son John is working on at Huntsville. My son did not have it to give to him and so he agreed to take my son for me. Now he has taken my John off in that boat God knows where.”

  “I saw he had a gun,” said Zuckman. “Did he have any other weapons?”

  “Not that I saw.” said John’s mother. “But I thought he was a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Japanese or Chinese or Korean or something like that.”

  At that moment four more squad cars pulled up beside them. It was the swat team, still wearing their gear after the training in Riverside Park. Zuckman got out of his car to explain the situation. In addition to Mrs. Sykes’s explanation, he added in the information from James Harper that John was an engineering contractor of crucial national security importance.