As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Someone once told me about a device, which puzzled me, because in the intelligence community, they are rather specific, unless of course they are absolutely ignorant of the technical side. The thing is, the references were always time signature, like "the moon shot", or "von Braun's rocket" to hearing it called babushka igla or grandmother's needle.
Those on the continent called it the device or langue du diable. Those in the states would just nod like they knew or had heard about it, but each character put it in the 1960's, sometime earlier, and sometimes turn of the century. Maybe it was like the fork, it had been invented around the world as it was an idea which came.
See one reference mentioned Soviet detonation cartridges, which was in the world war, and others were improvements with plastick.
What was described in mind, was a brass knuckle sort of device. Protruding out of it, was a chromium steel spike, like a hunting arrow. Again the references were to 7mm to 8mm, which places the origin in Europe in the metric system, yet other references keyholed the idea from the genius of the American Civil War.
A spike was screwed into the end of this thing, so it was one long shaft. The American steel part needed it hardened as the shaft was hollow. A coil spring, and yet a frowning face once deliberated that was more like a cocked shock absorber, which drove the firing pin was the element of the design.
The tip was a miniaturized canister shell. The idea was to penetrate the chest cavity, between the ribs, back or front, and while the target froze in shock, the thumb depressed the trigger button, which drove the firing pin into the canister, which was embedded 3 inches in the chest. The theory was they liked the modern plastick, instead of the old nitros, and the pressure, with lines cut along the head of the canister so it peeled outward, instead of driving the point forward, atomized the heart and lung.
The description in use was it sounded like a muffled thump. It was more silent than a silencer, and aside from an exhale cough in some circumstances, the government official would be ten steps away before the target hit the floor, and out of the area, before anyone began to think there was a problem.
I was never able to ascertain who invented the device or even where it originated from. Never did have anyone admit to using the thing. It was more just affirmation for the convenience and the success of it.
Oh the "moon shot" was a take on Werner von Braun's Apollo program, where stages of the rocket kept shedding until all that was left was the capsule.
Nuff Said
agtG
