Retired Army Major Ben Hunnicutt, living in Eagle River, Alaska, encounters an old Army friend who now commands the Nike Hercules guided missile units which defend Anchorage and the nearby military bases from surprise attack by Soviet long range bombers. The Cold War is at its height and the lower 48 states are in turmoil from rioting, dissident groups committing acts of domestic terrorism, and a general rejection of the war in Viet Nam.
The Nike commander enlists the aid of Ben and his FBI Agent girlfriend, Liz Nichole, in investigating a rumored plot by a fringe Weathermen group to hijack a Nike missile nuclear warhead. They threaten to cause widespread radioactive contamination of the Anchorage bowl unless granted certain military and political concessions by the government.
The hijacking succeeds, and Ben must locate the hidden warhead and prevent the planned incident which would spread radioactive material throughout the area.
He tracks the group to its hiding place in an abandoned mine near Palmer, but gets careless and is captured. Ben takes advantage of a freak accident to escape and recover the nuclear weapon, but must then find a way to counter the group's Plan B, which is to detonate an on-site missile by long range rifle fire. Ben takes to the mountains with an ancient, but trusted, Sharps single-shot rifle to engage a shooter armed with a modern long-range target rifle equipped with a high-powered telescopic sight.
About the author - Don Neal, author of the Ben Hunnicutt novels, is a retired soldier. Reared in Suffolk and in Surry County in southern Virginia, he dropped out of the College of William and Mary and enlisted in the Army after the Chinese entered the Korean War in late 1950. His 28 years of service encompassed nearly the entire Cold War period, taking him to Japan, Germany, Korea, and Alaska. He has served in the Infantry, Field Artillery, Armor, and Air Defense Missile branches. His final ten years of service were in Alaska with the Nike Hercules Air Defense units protecting the Anchorage and Fairbanks population centers during the Cold War.
Neal and his family have resided in the Anchorage area for over 50 years. His hobbies include military history and the research and study of antique and historical firearms, with an occasional foray into drag racing.
His novels reflect Alaska as a Territory in the 1950's, then as a new state, before it was transformed by the discovery of oil.
Keywords: Nike, Hercules Missile, Weathermen, Cold War, Nuclear, Warhead, Sharps Rifle, Talkeetna, Buffalo Mine, Alaska, Mountain
