MM
Take care,
Ruck
Can't wait to read this particular part in the context of the entire thing.
As I said before, I completely understand and agree with the premise that writing so straight forwardly about such things can help warn and awaken the populace to insure that they never become reality ... while providing a good and exciting story at the same time.
However, I believe that many of the forces/motivations/etc. are already in place and that your story about what "may" happen is probably more grounded in reality than most citizens (including myself) would like to contemplate.
I do believe that "wet" operations of this sort have been conducted and I believe they can find people to conduct them ... look at Lon Houruchi for example. Finding a way to eradicate such operations and keep them from expanding to more wide spread occurrences is the key.
Hopefully, your story, with your credibility and background, will be a part of that combination.
Regards and again ... GREAT writing! Let me know if I can help in any way when it comes time to get it out the door.
Great work. Ping me when the book is finished.
Concerning the other self-contained chapter you mentioned:
National Guardsman in the Humvee with the M-60 opens up on the line of stopped cars in the confusion.
Does the media report that the WW2 vet fired on them (the cars) with his .45? Not that the story is predictable - the media is. I have lots of other questions, but I'll have to anxiously wait for the book.
Once again - great job. Can't wait to read more.
...
"I was never really what you'd call the activist type. My idea of subversion was surfing websites like 2600 and TAP. I liked my country and all, but my idea of "patriots" was that they wore camo and played games in the woods, so I was pretty surprised when I heard that knock on my door.
I've always been a bit paranoid, or at least I have ever since I served time in juvenile for hacking some old DARPANET systems. A crazy, gay ACLU attorney finally got my record expunged just before I graduated college, so I was able to get a decent job, but his advice to me was to stay so straight (there's irony there) and paranoid that I'd never be busted again no matter what.
I cracked my door and looked out. There they were. Two aged men, wearing stereotypical camos that had seen better days. It wasn't until the one in back spoke up that I realized I knew him.
I let them in against my better judgement, but my judgement never has been very sharp (just ask my last two girlfriends). Then again, what do you say when you see the cop who busted you as a teenager? If you haven't been there, you probably wouldn't understand, but there he was. He retired years ago, he explained to me, and now he needed a favor.
Well, that was rich. I can think of my screaming parents, two trials, and three years behind concrete and barbed wire with freaks who had an entirely different concept of survival than I did as reasons enough not give this guy any favors. I could still taste the concrete and remember him reading me my rights, and I told him so. Man, that felt good to finally be able to speak back to him. Old memories were flooding into my mind, and now this guy needed me.
But his story rocked my myopic little world. People weren't getting their rights read to them anymore, he explained. Police commissioners were all UN appointees, and all cops and paramilitary forces were under their direct local supervision. The rules were different, too. The Treaty of Global Good Governance was viewed as the supreme law of the land, and it didn't have a Bill of Rights.
"So why are you here talking to me", I finally asked.
"We need a hacker."
My hands went numb. I felt my face go flush. Ten years later the same cop wants to send me back to jail? What an obvious setup! I tried to stand and tell them to leave, but I just couldn't. My knees wouldn't move and I just sat there staring at them.
They didn't seem to notice. Maybe I was crazy but it looked as though they were figeting. Now that's rich, I thought. They're nervous, but I'm the one that's going to go to jail if I don't get smart fast.
My old arresting cop started to continue. It's our cell phones. We know that they've been turning them on to track us and listen to us, and we want to trap them.
"More power to you," I managed to stammer.
Then it grew quiet. "You don't understand. It's all over. It's not the cops versus criminals or Conservatives versus Liberals anymore. Our government is gone. The Constitution is gone. Our rights are gone. Our soverignty is gone. The police commissioner for this town is from Nigeria, and the precinct captain is from Yemen. Over them both is a regional council that's comprised of two Communist Chinese and a mullah from Iran."
This was actually news to me. I tracked the news on the web, and no one had mentioned any of this to me and I told them so.
"They all have cover stories. The news is only allowed to mention and show their American puppets. A UN Fairness-in-Media committee insures that each news agency carries only the official news, and who's in charge isn't part of that."
I told them that I'm not buying any of this spiel. That I'm not hacking anything for them and that I'm not going back to jail. Finally, I felt the strength begin to return to my legs. I stood and showed them the door.
The ex-cop that I didn't know finally spoke. "OK, I understand your position, but can you at least answer a technical question for us?"
"Is the Pope Catholic," I laughed?!
"Just tell us, can you detect when someone is trying to remotely access your cell phone?"
I laughed again. "Of course. The signal to activate and the codes for functions are all clear-text, unencrypted."
That's when I noticed it. They both sighed and relaxed. Man, maybe I had these two pegged wrong. Nobody in a sting relaxes when their prey refuses to cross the line into illegality.
"Well, even if you won't help us per se," the quiet ex-cop said, maybe you can one day feel comfortable enough with us to tell us how we can detect that signal."
I must've still been in shock, though, because as they were leaving I told them to bring a laptop and the cell phone that they wanted for their trap back and I'd tell them how to do it.
And then I bolted the door shut and prayed for the first time in seven years...
Just to help edit your work, if Rodman and Sanderson are both Senators, you should write "the assassination of Senators Rodman and Sanderson"
Anyway, I like it!
BTW- do you think Xlibris or whatever is the one your going to look into? one of them?