The discussion set my fertile mind wandering, and gave me the germ of an idea for a novel – the development of a new computer protocol – and a certain reluctance on the part of FISA to recognize something new and innovative. I began a simple research of NSA and FISA, and began writing vignettes from there.
Before I knew it I had enough vignettes to arrange them into chapter form, and by last winter, Thinking Outside The Box -- A Novel About Terrorism was finished. By the time it was finished, as so often happens, the original story idea, NSA/FISA, was actually only peripheral to the action of the story – which revolves around the NSA, FBI and CIA all working cooperatively to foil a plot to blow up a major college football stadium during one of the biggest early-season games of the year. I work in Ann Arbor, Michigan, so I will let you guess which stadium I am speaking about—but, of course, there are plot twists that make this early knowledge of negligible value.
Read On...
A small handful of you here have read the finished product, or more accurately, some form of the near-finished product, as I continually added and polished the manuscript, and have provided valuable feedback. Originally, the most often-hear criticism was that it wasn’t long enough – you wanted more, which resulted in the addition of almost 10,000 words and three chapters – giving, I hope, more depth to the plot, and a fuller understanding of the characters and their actions. I rewrote the ending three times before I was finally thrilled with it.
Attempting to write a novel, I discovered, was a daunting, and seemingly overwhelming task. I suppose that is the reason more people don’t do it. But more daunting still, I have discovered, is finding a publisher for your work, when you are an unknown author, and know no one in the publishing business.
Publishers, you see, are less likely to take a flyer on an unknown author than say a Tom Clancy, who they know comes with a ready-made audience. They are guaranteed a best-seller. They would like to know if there might be other novels to follow (yes there are—I have a sequel outlined – and in addition, am working on a separate novel project that is very exciting.)
So why, you might ask, am I writing this diary? This is an attempt to circumnavigate the roadblocks placed before a new, unpublished author that make it difficult to become noticed by a top publishing house. Like Reagan, I am taking it directly to the people. It is my hope that one of you reading this works for a publisher, or knows an editor at a publishing house, well enough to say, “Hey, take a look at this guy!” The goal is it be able to quit the day job, and do this full time.
So, you might ask at this point, tell me something about the novel. I’ll do better than that, and include a couple of excerpts. But first, a little overview:
In the first place, there are an awful lot of factual happenings that I have woven throughout the plot. More frighteningly still, several of the plot lines I wrote became factual events after I wrote them, prompting Gordon Taylor to write me at one time to ask if I was putting out press releases!
The protagonist is the new Director of the NSA (when the current NSA director becomes the head of CIA – factual!) who must deal with a FISA judge who is reluctant to grant a wiretap against an American citizen based upon computer models that suggest a worldwide plot using throwaway cell phones.
Some of the plotters come into the country illegally through both the Mexican border (using a Coyote) and the Canadian border at Detroit (using trash haulers from Toronto). The trash issue is, by the way, a huge issue to the citizens of Michigan and has been for more than five years.
One of my two American domestic plotters is a convert to Islam through the prison system, another hot-button issue, and both of them have long-standing reasons to hate their own country, loners filled with hatred, I lay out pretty compelling reasons why they are willing to die as martyrs in the process.
I weave the NSA, CIA and FBI into the anti-terrorism investigations using the National Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) and the National Counter-terrorism Commission (NCTC), both of which are real bodies tasked to fight terrorism in this country. It was, in fact, the JTTF that recently was instrumental in breaking up the Kennedy International Airport plot.
In addition I include a couple of sympathetic Muslim characters, one of whom is working with the FBI to combat terrorism, and one of whom wants nothing more than to reunite his family by bringing them here to America.
My loosely al Qaeda type terrorist organization has ties to Iran and (pre-911) Iraq as well as China. The Chinese connection, in fact, deals with smuggling explosives into the country in counterfeit machine and automobile parts, another hot-topic issue in dealing with China.
That is the background around which the story revolves. The narrative involves a plot to blow up the University of Michigan-Notre Dame game using tanker trucks loaded with Jet-A fuel and with the undercarriages loaded with explosives. Interestingly enough, I chose the UM-Notre Dame game because Islam is just as angry with the Catholic Church as America before the Pope made his unfortunate comments by that 15th Century philosopher which further inflamed Islam against him. I’m on the cutting edge I swear.
I included support from a Toronto mosque based on the large Pakistani population I know to exist in Toronto, again before those 14 Muslims were arrested in Toronto for plotting against the Canadian government. As I said, the weaving of fact and fiction is almost frightening here.
I include a little red-meat for the other side as well. There is the suggestion (not stated) that the Attorney General, with the aid of the Secret Service, poisons the FISA judge (nothing serious, just food poisoning) in order to get a more sympathetic judge.
Also I include a scene from an Italian prison that suggests, again without actually graphically showing it, the torture of a terrorist conspirator by the Italians. While the CIA is not involved, we do get valuable “take” from the interview.
I allow the UM-Notre Dame plot to be discovered pretty early in the novel, actually, but it is not until the end that the protagonist (and hopefully the reader) realizes that there is a second stadium targeted – that plot uncovered and foiled right at the very end. The final scene is dynamite! (Well, actually C-4!)
As an aside, the protagonist, Commander Thomas Lainge is a former Navy fighter pilot – turned Naval Academy instructor – turned NSA Director. My college roommate used to carry a nasty old newspaper photo of myself in his wallet, from my college competition days, to whip out at inopportune moments, and tell people that I was “his hero.”
Well, if any of you reading this at the Naval War College would care to point this out to Commander Lang, now I have made him “my hero!”
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX – A Novel About Terrorism
A brief synopsis:
Jamal and Siad were both American Muslims with longstanding and personal reasons to both hate their country and to be willing to die to punish it. With help from radical Islamic terrorists, they develop a plan to blow up a major college football stadium during the game.
Commander Thomas Lainge was looking forward to his retirement from the Navy when the President asked him to take over as head of NSA. When one of his analysts detects what he believes to be a terror cell, he must convince a FISA judge to allow him to wiretap an American citizen.
Ishmael was a Muslim student, so horrified by the attack on 9/11 that he vowed to work with the FBI to root out possible terrorists within his own Muslim community.
These characters and others are thrown together into a tale that combines fact with fiction, intertwining events we read about today, with a plot that might, or might not happen tomorrow. The novel is fast paced with non-stop action, told in a way that keeps the reader on the edge of his seat.
A real page-turner, the number one complaint of those that have previewed the novel is; they wanted more!
An Excerpt from Chapter 9
Somewhere in Italy in a prison run by the Servizio per le Informazioni e la Sicurezza Militare, the Italian counterpart to our CIA
Mahmoud had ceased to wonder at how he had been caught. The most careful of men, he had at first tried to dissect his every move, gleaning the missteps that had led to his arrest. Unable to pinpoint any errors on his own part, he was now resigned to whatever fate Allah had in store for him.
The near silence was broken suddenly as the door through which the nurse had entered was thrust open, banging against the wall. Small flakes of paint fell to the floor, attesting to the fact that this was not the first time for this occurrence.
Mahmoud’s head snapped up as two men entered. His attention was riveted on the one in front, carrying a small leather satchel. Almost unnoticed, the second man slipped behind Mahmoud, as the first man placed the satchel on a small table in front of him, and opened it.
Carefully, he removed a small hand-held propane tank with an adjustable nozzle. Setting the tank upright on the table, he next took out a hand igniter, twisted the knob on the nozzle to allow gas to escape, and ignited it. Slowly twisting back the knob, he adjusted the gas down to a barely visible blue flame.
Mahmoud’s eye never left that flame, even as the man removed a small stand and adjustable clamp from the bag, setting it up next to the flaming tank. It was not until he had also removed a long ugly looking knife and anchored it into the clamp that his attention was diverted from the flame.
As the man placed the end of the knife in the flame, that flame flared yellow where it contacted the blade. Staring now at the knife, Mahmoud’s eyes visibly narrowed, a questioning look coming for the first time over his face.
Unnoticed, the second man slipped up behind Mahmoud, just beyond the range of his vision, whispering into his ear in Arabic.
“You have seen my knife before, my friend.” There was no friendliness in his voice, which, even in a whisper, rang loudly through the room. “I see you recognize it. Are you surprised to see it again…here…now?”
An Excerpt from Chapter 26
In Ann Arundel County, MD
The house remained deadly quiet, the only sound coming from the hum of the computer in the corner of the living room. Always on, the whisper of the cooling fan told him it was doing its job. Tiptoeing up the carpeted stairway he first of all looked in on the boys, the door to their rooms both slightly ajar. No nightlight lit the upstairs of his home, but his eyes had quickly adjusted to the dim light, and enough moonlight came through the open windows to provide all the light he needed. They both appeared to be soundly sleeping, the covers thrown about, half on and half off the bed, in typical boy fashion. Their rooms gave the appearance of having been ransacked, a sure sign that Peg had not yet ordered their bi-monthly cleaning.
They were now in the middle of their second full week of school, their book bags each stacked next to their bedroom doors. Naturally neither bag was orderly, as books and papers protruded from their open tops. He wondered if they had homework. A touch of guilt crossed his mind. He imagined Peg standing over them, helping them with their Math or their English homework. His conscience told him that was his duty to perform, a duty that he was derelict in his performance.
He had slipped his shoes off before ascending the stairway. Now, carrying them in his left hand, he entered his own bedroom. He recognized his wife as a lump on the right side of the bed, completely covered, with her pillow thrown over her head. He’d often kidded her about that, telling her that she wouldn’t even be able to hear a fire alarm the way she slept. Her reply was inevitably that it was his duty, as the man, to waken her in case of a fire.
Slipping across to the master bath, he closed the door to the bath before switching on the overhead light. The sudden brightness momentarily stunned him, his eyes, however, quickly adjusting. Reaching into the shower, he turned on the water, adjusting the temperature before stepping inside. Removing his shirt and dropping it to the floor he surveyed his own image in the mirror. He looked tired, he decided. He was looking forward to taking a break. It would be good for him to get away this coming weekend. The stress of this job was enormous.
He dropped the remainder of his clothing in a pile next to the hamper, and stepped through the frosted door into the shower. The moment the hot water contacted his skin he felt relief. The steam rising around him instantly warmed him like a sauna. For several minutes he just stood there, allowing the water to wash over his body. The noise of the shower prevented him from hearing the door to the bath open and then click closed again.
Taking a handful of shampoo from the bottle in the corner, he scrubbed it into his hair. With his back to the shower door, he did not notice the shadowy figure that swept across in front of the shower.
An Excerpt from Chapter 5
FISA Courtroom Top floor of the Federal Building, Washington, DC – a courtroom with no windows and a cipher lock to enter.
Something in his body language must have hinted that he was about to speak out to the judge, because he felt the Attorney General’s hand lightly rest upon his shoulder with just the hint of pressure applied with the fingers. In a very unobtrusive manor, he was being told by the Attorney General to “Shut up.”
“Your honor,” he began again, only to once again be interrupted from the bench.
“The standards for a wiretap under the FISA provision when it involves surveillance of a US citizen or an alien residing legally within our borders are clear. The Attorney General must present a case to present before the court stating the facts and circumstances relied upon . . . to justify belief that the target is an agent of a foreign power or engages . . . in international terrorism.”
“I thank you for that explanation,” the Attorney General replied dryly, the irony showing in his voice. What the judge had just told him was nearly word for word from the statute. If the judge perceived any hint of rebuke in his words, she showed no sign of it.
“If the court will examine the documents presented, she will see that a very strong case has been made that we are dealing with a clandestine organization…possibly an al Qaeda terror cell…that is using disposable cell phones to communicate with persons both outside and within our borders,” the Attorney General reiterated.
“The court will notice,” he continued, “in those conversations captured outside our borders…a clear pattern of behavior has been established to indicate…”
Once again the judge interrupted the AG, stopping him in mid-sentence.
“I have examined those ‘intercepts’ and I see no clear pattern, except the fact that there are a lot of wrong numbers being dialed. If we are to wiretap anyone who misdials a number, it would seem to me that government resources will be tied up for decades listening to innocent persons.”
There it is, now there are three things I would ask of you.
1. Please hit the recommend button so this doesn’t find itself buried.
2. Please take a moment to Digg it at well. Enough of you Digg it and it will have the chance to be seen by more than the mere thousands who will read it here.
3. Tell an editor or book publisher about it. I can be contacted through the site
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