This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Hear
weekday Afternoons on the Drive last had Brad Taylor on with the release of his
novel End of Days. Once again, his protagonist Pike Logan is back,
this time in a thriller known as dead Man's Hand. Good to have you
along, Lieutenant colonel retired with a twenty one year veteran of the United States
Infantry and Special Forces. Brad Taylor, how are you. I'm doll well,
thank you for having me. Well, how is your protagonist Pike Logan
doing? He's doing better. Now Now I'm the books done, I'll tell
you that I imagine. So now a lot of what this deals with is
is as timely as if taken from today's headlines the Ukrainian conflict and putin yeah,
definitely. Honestly, I never write about current events precisely because they're current.
Yeah. And the flash to bank for a book takes about a year,
so you don't know what's going to happen in between that year. And
I decided to write on this one knowing the risks involved, and I sent
my publisher here's three risks of this book. If I write this book,
here's three things to go sideways, and the book will no longer be valid.
Well, let's get into the adventure that Pike Logan gets involved in in
Dead Man's Hand. Yeah, I, like I said, I was doing
research on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, not because I was writing a book,
but just because I stay on top of that because I still do security
consulting. And during that research I found I ran across the perimeter system inside
Russia. They have a system for nuclear deterrence that came out of our own
SDI in the eighties. I was going to ask the system was putting.
The system was put in place when Reagan. President Reagan said, we have
SDi's Strategic Defense Initiative cloacally known as Star Wars. We can knock every missile
into our country out of the air. And that scared the heck out of
Russia because at the time we had the deterrence was mad usually assured destruction.
So if you attack us, we're going to attack you and we're both gonna
die. And that kept us from firing. And they said, well,
they think they can knock every missile out of the air. That renders mad
mute, there's no they'll be inclined to do a first strike. And so
they came up with a perimeter system, which was a bunch of censors around
Russia. Was like first generation artificial intelligence. So if all these sensors were
met, if they had sizing sensors for earthquake noticification, they had communication censor
to the Krimlins not talking. If all that met, then a computer actually
collated all this and said we're launching the missiles anyway. And that was our
way of defeating us or deterring US from doing a first strike. And that
system still exists inside Russia. It's kind of like you know, you're running
on five and a quarter floppies. Had he checked the batteries in this thing.
So that was enough for me to say I can make a story out
of that. It just unfolded right in front of you. Absolutely, And
so in the book I actually change it from it's not a nuclear strike,
so the perimeter system is based on a nuclear strike. All these different systems
have to work to make sure this thing goes off correctly, and in the
book I change it to just putin himself. He says, look, if
I go if I fall out of a window by drinks some plutonium lace tea.
You need to launch these missiles, and that's what I change it to.
Brad Taylor, Lieutenant colonel retired and his new book is dead Man's Hand.
I'm laughing because that was my next question. If Putin is involved,
someone's going to get a little too close to a window, right, Absolutely,
that's true. So this is all in an effort to try to calm
things down in Ukraine, and Pike Logan is at the focal point of all
this. Yeah, So it's basically a band of partisans in the Ukraine,
which obviously have a bunch of them. They say, look, this is
a stalemate. We've been fighting back and forth. The only way we're gonna
end this war is get rid of Putin. And Mike Logan would like to
help him, but now he's in the horns of a dilemma. He's got
a moral dilemma, and so he finds out about the dead Man's Hand and
he's like, if I get if I help the Ukrainians get rid of Putin,
I'm gonna engender nuclear war. But I really don't want to help Putin
survive this. So he's got a dilemma going on. Yeah, that's I
was going to ask you to the significant of dead man's hand. For those
who don't know that folk card hand is allegedly what wild Bill was holding when
he got shot aces and eights, but in this particular context, it refers
to the name of the operation. Yeah, well, the dead hand.
So the perimeter system I just abscribed to you was it's known as a perimeterive
system in Russia, but it was known as the dead hand in NATO.
It still is known as the dead hand for obvious reasons. Yeah, the
missiles only launched when everybody's dead, So there's a dead hand on the switch,
and Putin changes it to the dead man's hand, meaning it's not a
nuclear strike that causes this thing to go off, it's my death. Okay.
Back in the day, they used to have a dead man clutch on
lawnmowers, which meant if you let go of it, they stop trans Yeah,
they had there was a dead man's so that we called it the dead
hand in NATO because it's a there's nobody at the switch. If this thing
initiates, it means we have killed everybody in the Kremlin, and that's why
we call it the Dead Hand. Now, this is why Brad Taylor's works
are so fascinating and fun to read, because even though it is fiction,
you know he's done his homework and you know, to a certain extent,
he's lived it. His new book is Dead Man's Hand. Is there a
solution to the Ukrainian problem right now? Optimistically, I'd say the solution is
that Ukraine kicks him out of all the you know, provinces, oblost and
all that that they own. Pessimistically, I think the solution is going to
be that Russia ends up with some part of Ukraine. I just don't see
how they mass has a quality all its own in warfare when you have ten
to one ratio which Russia has in the industrial base and the soldiers and everything
else. It's just very hard. You have to have a political calculation,
which is actually what the book's about. If Putin left and somebody came in
and said we're sick of this, we're pulling out, that's what has to
happen, and he does kind of deal with that in Dead Man's Hand.
It's a Pike Logan novel, and Brad Taylor is with us on the drive.
So is not putin at the same time bankrupting his own nation. He
is not yet. I mean, he's got a lot of work arounds.
There's a lot of ways he could do that. And they have not felt
the crunch yet. And they felt it a little bit, but not nearly
as bad as I mean. You have to remember back in the Soviet Union
days. You know, everybody stood in line to get a loaf of bread,
so they're kind of used to it. I mean, it would take
a lot of economic pressure to get that got it altered for the population to
say I am now against putin. Brad Taylor dead Man's Hand is the book.
It's out Now. When you do compose something like this, do you
have to run it by some Pentagon officials or have you been separated enough from
the operation where you don't have to worry about that as much. Now the
every organization has their own pre publication review process. So CIA has THEIRS,
DD has THEIRS, FBI has THEIRS. They all have. One state department
has their own and for the Department of Defense, fiction does not fall into
it. If I was going to write a memoir of my life, if
I was arrogant enough to think everybody we want to read that that would have
to be reviewed. If I was going to write about special operations inside Syria,
even though I have not served in Syria, I know enough about that
that I could actually actually write about what's going on there, that would have
to be a reviewed. But fiction does not. I mean, where do
you draw the line? Just because I was in classified units and I've signed
non disclosure statements. But if I wrote a police procedural about a detective in
New York City, does that have to be reviewed? I mean, why
would that have to be reviewed. I've never been a cop in New York
City. Well, say the cop was now a next SF Guide, Now
does it have to be reviewed? I mean, where do you draw the
line on that. I could write a book about Navy seals. I've never
been in navy. Does that have to reviewed? So they don't do fiction?
Lieutenant Colonel retired Brad Taylor. His newest creation, dead Man's Hand,
is out now. If you love these kind of thrillers like I do,
it'll be next on your reading lists. Brad, thank you for joining us,
Thank you, thank you for having me, Thanks for listening to Later
with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews podcast and remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and Iheartsmedia presentation