The First Terrorist Act - Softcover

Harold Thomas Beck

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1929382022 ISBN 13: 9781929382026

Publisher: Mountain Laurel Pub Corp, 2011

Synopsis

Against the unfolding events of September 11, 2001 Charley Hayes, a fifty-five year old piano bar owner, is forced to face his past.

A decorated war hero in Vietnam, Charley, a Green Beret assigned to Special Operations under the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a man who knew too much and posed a potential embarrassment for the Agency and the Government. The wheels began to eliminate him and the threat he posed.

However, when he is rolled in a Virginia motel by a man and woman who steal his wallet and car and are subsequently killed in a flaming automobile crash, Charley Reed escapes the sanction, ceases to exist, and assumes the identity of a comrade who was killed in action. He goes to California and begins a new life.

On July 17, 1996 he is traveling on US Air 217 from Charlotte to Providence when fate steps in. He and two other men on the same flight witness a missile fired from the ocean at TWA Flight 800. The 747 is destroyed and everyone on board is killed. John Hughes, a CIA operative, is assigned to investigate. In the course of his investigation he realizes one of the eyewitnesses is using the identity of an Agency operative who was killed in Vietnam in 1968. With government sanctions forbidden, John Hughes is unable to move on the man he feels may have eluded him years before.

In the days following the events of September 11th, Charley, like the majority of Americans is glued to the television. His past confronts him when he realizes the son he never knew was killed as he attempted to help others escape the north tower of the World Trade Center.

It is at this time Charley attempts to return to the life he left and find out about his son. As he does, the wheels of the machinery of government, long dormant, have come back to life. While the CIA secretly snatches people off the street and interrogates them, John Hughes takes it upon himself to execute the old sanction. Old secrets are exposed and Charley comes face to face with the past he ran away from.

About this title

About the Author

Harold Thomas Beck is an award winning writer and best selling author. His books include Ripe For the Picking, Cornplanter Chronicles, The First Terrorist Act, Tyrannus Bush?, and The Wrong Arm of the Law. He is the former Publisher and Editor in Chief of the Mountain Laurel Review, the publication that resurrected the story of the Marjorie West disappearance. Mr. Beck, who holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and a MA in English and Irish Literature, currently teaches English Composition, Creative Writing, and Literature at Rasmussen College. He is also the Marketing Editor at OCALA Magazine and helps aspiring authors to write their manuscripts and get their books published.

Review

An amazing, riviting thriller based on historical events. Washington Post December 2002 --Washington Post

This out Clancys Clancy, --By Tom Clancy lover (Rockford, Illinois) October 1, 2005

This is a great thriller based on historical fact. You lose yourself and wonder if it is real or just make believe. --Tom Waldron Detroit Free Press

This out Clancys Clancy, --By Tom Clancy lover (Rockford, Illinois) October 1, 2005

This is a great thriller based on historical fact. You lose yourself and wonder if it is real or just make believe. --Tom Waldron Detroit Free Press

About this edition

• Publisher: Mountain Laurel Pub Corp
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1929382022
• ISBN 13: 9781929382026
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 672