War Of Choice

By John Brinling

A reluctant extraterrestrial holds sway over war and peace when drawn into the Machiavellian politics of a warmongering White House. An FBI agent, his daughter and girlfriend must survive the murder and mayhem that ensue, and convince the ET to help them prevent a war with North Korea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Brinling
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465985002

John Brinling

Author Bio: John Brinling I was born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on June 8, 1936. I grew up in Pittsburgh and didn't leave home until I was 21 and heading off to graduate school at the University of Illinois in Chicago. I've attended multiple universities: Duquesne, U. of Illinois, U. of Pittsburgh, Columbia. And I have a B.S. in Pharmacy and an M.S. in Pharmacology. I was married in 1975 and have one daughter. I have been writing all of my life. I wrote my first novel when I was sixteen. "Black Dawn." It dealt with segregation and the KKK. Whatever happened to it I don't know. Since then, earning a living has preempted long periods of my life when I wrote very little. My wife and I are both in data processing (IT nowadays) and we usually work long hours when we are on a contract, which meant I spent little time writing fiction when gainfully employed. The birth of my daughter offered me another excuse for not writing, but that's what it was: an excuse. Writing is hard. But it's in my DNA and I keep returning to it, despite some part of me that prefers the lazy life. However, not writing is unthinkable, and I am constantly exploring ideas even when I'm not committing them to paper. I lived and worked in Europe for seven years. I met my wife In Italy where we both worked for the same company, and were married in 1975. The contract we were working on ended that year and we took two years off to live in England, in a 300 year old farmhouse in Wiltshire. It was in that farmhouse that I wrote "The Ghost Of A Flea," as well as another book titled "Quarantine," which is a science fiction thriller. "The Ghost" has a strong autobiographical component. I was a programmer/analyst. The office ambience in the novel is similar to life in my New York office, although the intrigues were of an entirely different nature. I had a good friend who lived in Sparta. I lived for a time near the George Washington Bridge. The building manager was an Irishman, who became a good friend, and an integral character in the book. "Quarantine" is set in East Africa, where my wife and I vacationed, and I drew liberally on what we read, saw, and experienced. I had an agent back then who marketed both books, and came very close to selling them to both Doubleday and St. Martins. Unfortunately he died before completing the sale and I put the books on a shelf and forgot about them for 35 years. Only this year did I resurrect them and publish them on Amazon'...

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

DESERT OUTSIDE LAREDO, TEXAS

Night.

On the night vision monitor, three Mexicans, each armed and carrying a knapsack, walked hurriedly across the desert toward the U.S. border. One ate a candy bar.

Off in the distance, a long train rumbled by, adding to the sense of remoteness.

...You can see and eavesdrop on smugglers a mile away, Rick Zorn said. It doesn't need visible light. Sees the heat objects emit. Puts you up close and personal. Take these guys. Each has a knapsack. A handgun. The first one a thin, curly moustache. The guy at the rear is munching a candy bar. A Snickers. This thing does everything but arrest them.

Listen! George urged. You can even hear the fuckers bitching to each other.

They'd shit their pants they knew we were watching them sneak across the border, Border Guard #1 said.

You finished, Adam? Border Guard #2 asked. I gotta pee.

Four men stood near an infrared camera on a tripod and a border guard vehicle.

Two border patrol guards in their forties. Adam Zorn and George Munoz. Both FBI agents.

Border Guard #2 walked off to relieve himself.

Adam Zorn, forty, was tall; with eyes that missed nothing. George, thirty, a Mexican-American, carried too much weight around his mid-section. Both FBI Agents wore blue FBI caps and blazers. A standard FBI 10mm Heckler & Koch MP-5 machine pistol in a shoulder rig.

As Zorn manipulated the joystick, the monitor scanned the endless desert in front of the Mexicans, and picked up the train moving very slowly less than a mile away.

Zorn returned focus to the fleeing men.

It's eerie out here, George observed. I got the chills. How do you guys do it?

Tranquilizers, George, Border Guard # 1 answered. Lots of them. And women. Lots of them, too.

They both laughed.

Zorn adjusted the audio to pick up the Mexicans' voices, their breathing, the barely audible rustle of their footsteps.

Border Guard #2 returned. Why does Washington keep sending us these great new toys, and no people to man them? We need double, triple the manpower. Tell them that back in Washington, will you?

Two, three thousand illegals come across every day, Border Guard #1 said, shaking his head in disgust. Everybody's for border security, but this camera ain't the answer.

It's only a tool, Zorn countered. Probably all you'll get between elections.

We went to Iraq when we didn't have to, Border Guard #1 said, and ‘Scooter’ Churchill, that right wing talk jock, says we're going after North Korea next. Is that true?

I don't know. I'm not in the Cabinet. Things might be different if I was.

Might? George quipped. Nobody hates war more than you.

George says you're an old Army Ranger, Border Guard #1 said. When was that?

Desert Storm. A lifetime ago.

My eldest son is flying a Medevac chopper over there, Border Guard #1 said. Says our boys are getting their asses kicked. Last week he had to pick up two guys caught in a firefight. The area was mined, and his prop-blast set them off. Shrapnel hit the belly of his chopper, and he figured he was going down. Somehow he didn't and got them out. Wet pants and all.

Good for him! Zorn said. If it wasn't for my bum knee, I'd be over there myself.

You got a death wish? the border guard asked.

This country's at risk, and, if I can make a difference, I will. Risking death is usually the price of admission.

Suddenly, on the monitor, the lead Mexican figure vanished from the screen. The other two men screamed in fear and started running.

What the fuck? Where'd he go? Border Guard #2 asked.

Zorn manipulated the camera's controls, panning back and forth, trying to bring the missing figure back into view. He's not there.

The two Mexicans ran side by side, fleeing some unseen danger. One abruptly disappeared, as mysteriously as the first.

The border guards look at each other in shocked amazement. Zorn's eyes never left the monitor.

The last Mexican fell to the ground, struggled to get up, then disappeared.

Zorn drew his gun. George did the same.

Let's get out there! Zorn said….

The desert was ablaze with sunlight. Railroad tracks cut across the burning sand. The two border guards plus Zorn and George looked down at the sand where the tracks of the Mexicans were still visible.

They were right here, Zorn said. All three of them. And they just disappeared. Picked up by their jock straps and carted off.

I told you them UFOs was real, George said, almost gleefully.

Zorn walked along the track of footprints, stopped, and fished a plastic evidence bag and a rubber glove from his pocket. He picked up a half-eaten candy bar still in its wrapper and slipped it into the evidence bag.

Fingerprints? the Border Guard #1 asked, knowing the answer.

Zorn nodded. It’s all that’s left of them.

CHAPTER 2

WASHINGTON, D.C. - HOTEL - CONFERENCE ROOM

A placard outside the open conference room doors identified the conference and speaker: SAVE THE PLANET CONFERENCE. 9 AM. DR. JOHN WATTS. JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. OCEAN LIFE AROUND DEEP SEA HYDROTHERMAL VENTS.

Dr. Watts - mid-fifties, well-dressed, clean-shaven, but tired-looking - stood at the podium, his face dour, glancing repeatedly at his watch, eager to have the lecture over.

Jane Zorn, Adam's daughter - twenty-one, raven-haired, honor student, lettered athlete - wore an MIT sweatshirt. She sat in the front row, talking in an animated fashion to Shin da Nuc - a Korean, late twenties, muscular, ex-Navy man, Dr. Watts' man Friday - while he made final adjustments on the slide projector. A wall screen accepted slide projections.

Zorn, in street clothes, entered the noisy, crowded conference room and took an aisle seat near the back.

Dr. Watts glanced at his watch. Let's get started, he said loudly.

The audience fell silent.

As most of you know, Dr. Watts began, "I am an underwater volcanologist, but I define that broadly to include damned near everything I want it to. Plate tectonics, life at the vents, the origin of life, life on other planets, global warming, etc., etc., etc....

The audience snickered its amusement.

Jane groaned a bit too loudly.

Dr. Watts smiled indulgently at her.

The animal noises you hear coming from the first row belong to Ms. Jane Zorn, a brilliant MIT oceanography student who I graciously allowed to accompany me on a Pacific cruise last summer, and who now claims she can walk on water and talk to animals. Since familiarity breeds disrespect, I urge her to keep her comments to herself.

More audience laughter. Even Jane laughed.

Dr. Watts clicked the video display switch and a color diagram of the northeast Pacific Ocean popped up. The Juan de Fuca Plate was outlined in red.

The Juan de Fuca Tectonic Plate lies in the Pacific, off the coasts of Washington and Oregon, and it is where I have focused my research recently. Today we will look at the bizarre creatures that live near the deep-sea hydrothermal vents that form along mid-oceanic ridges like the Juan de Fuca Plate, and the volcanic undersea mountain ranges where new seafloor - and new life! - is constantly being created.

A string of creatures from the deep paraded across the screen in the background. Dr. Watts pointed at them without bothering to specifically identify each.

These strange creatures – the vampire squid from hell...the giant tube worm...the anglerfish...the umbrellamouth gulper...the viperfish - all live in the dark at crushing depths and survive by chemosynthesis, a previously unknown mode of life support.

He surveyed the audience, pleased with the interest they showed.

The hydrothermal vent food chain depends on sulfur, not sunlight! Super-hot water laced with hydrogen sulfide is spewed out of cracks in the earth's crust. Bacteria convert these sulfur-rich fluids into energy. Other vent animals eat the bacteria and they in turn are eaten by larger vent animals.

Many scribbled furiously on their notepads, almost as if Dr. Watts was giving a lecture to his class and they would be held accountable for all the detail he uttered.

The Rule of the Jungle flourishes at 8,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, he said, as though that was the message they should take away from this lecture...."

CHAPTER 3

HOTEL - CONFERENCE ROOM

About thirty minutes later, Jane and Shin stood at the podium talking to Dr. Watts. Zorn walked slowly down the center aisle toward them.

Have you heard anything more about the break-in? Jane asked Dr. Watts.

Not a word, he replied. I suspect the police have forgotten about our stolen samples.

Not true, Doctor, Shin interjected. Only this morning they called again with more questions.

Zorn reached the podium just in time to join the conversation. I'm afraid I'm responsible for that call, Dr. Watts.

Dr. Watts looked at Zorn questioningly, obviously annoyed.

I'm Jane's father. Adam Zorn.

Zorn extended his hand and Dr. Watts gave it a perfunctory shake. Dr. Watts motioned to Shin. This is Shin. My assistant. A Navy vet. A real patriot.

Zorn nodded at Shin, curious at the deference Dr. Watts