Information Warfare is real and its NOW.

Amazing that one really doesn't hear that much about it, but of course banks and other hacked businesses don't like to let on that their systems have been penetrated.  Lots of trade secrets are being stolen.


Read more from the people who track this stuff:  The-changing-and-terrifying-nature-of-the-new-cyber-warfare


Don't say you weren't warned. 

The Shadow Warriors novel on sale

Smashwords sale only (no Kindle) until March 15 for The Shadow Warriors.  Use Coupon Code QR73B and the novel only costs $1.49.  The author is Judith Copek.  Smashwords Web site


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The Shadow Warriors is a genre-busting novel of suspense, incorporating international locales (Singapore, Hong Kong, Boston, Brussels and Germany), technology (software agents) and derring-do at a German university. The story is framed by an outbreak of information warfare. Emma Lee Davis, a web security consultant, must dredge up a painful summer in her past to discover a means to end the info-war that has disrupted civilization.

The novel provides insights into the computer hacker culture of old, complete with colorful techspeak and the offbeat humor that always accompanies an information systems project.  All the while Emma’s irreverent, insightful observations and unique voice pepper the cyber-suspense with aspects of cyber-farce. The topic of technology running amok is timely; the characters are unique. The millions of  IT professionals will enjoy a book that features their misunderstood livelihoods.  

Some Cybercrime Web Sites

Here are a few basic sites.  Wikipedia even has one.

Cybercrime: U.S. Department of Justice

For a foreign slant:  Interpol and Cyber Crime

Drug Lords and Rackets:  Cyber Crime and Money Laundering

I hope this gives you some food for thought.  If you need something more imaginative, you can grab a copy of The Shadow Warriors.

Read the Infowar Blog

Here is the link. Infowar Blog Lots of late-breaking news, etc.

 Assume everyone who can read has learned of the attack on GoDaddy yesterday.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Cyberattacks Increase in U.S.

Targeting our infrastructure, cyberattacks against the U. S. have risen 17-fold in the past few years (2009-2011).  Read all about it here:  Cyberattacks on Rise in U.S.


Cyberattacks are the theme, framing the plot in The Shadow Warriors, first pubbed in 2001.  Was I ahead of the curve or not?  Falling on deaf ears, of course.  Maybe I should have sent the NSA and the White House copies of the book?  Will it become a best seller if the attacks are not thwarted on some occasion?  I would not wish that on anyone, the attacks, that is, not becoming a best seller.  


I did scads of research, and considered myself almost an expert at one time.  A few years ago I threw out all my  carefully collected documents because everything was so out of date.  


BTW, I had no idea that WE created Stuxnet.  Is that a fact?  I read it recently, maybe in Wired Magazine, my go-to place for cyber lore.  We haven't acknowledged it, if true.  What would the Skunkworks think?  Writing my techno-thriller was such fun.  Along with World of Mirrors which had a different kind of technology at its heart.   It  would be fun to be a mouse in the wainstcotting (assuming there might be wainscotting) at the Aspen Institute. 

Cassandra Syndrome

Counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke discusses cyber war in this month's (April 2012) Smithsonian Magazine. This story  sounds so much like The Shadow Warriors (the Stuxnet virus) that I too feel like Cassandra, for having first written about Info War after hitting upon the idea for the "Warriors" from Paul Strassman in an article way back in 1995.  Can you believe it? 

I recommend anyone interested in the topic of cyber or info war to head to your nearest library and sit down with the April Smithsonian Magazine.  According to Clarke, the U.S. can go on the offensive but we are virtually (!) helpless against an offense.  Where are Wayne, Christof, Kathy Chang and even Emma  (my characters) when we need their expertise so badly?  Bring on the Skunk Works! 

Lots of questions, few answers, but Richard Clarke has his ideas about Stuxnet.  Endlessly fascinating. 

The Shadow Warriors  hit the nail on the head.  Read about it now, before the Cyber War brings down your computers. 

Institute For Advanced Computing

The Denizens of the Institute ate pizza with a knife and fork

When I began the novel, The Shadow Warriors, I knew I wanted Goettingen to be a big part of the book, and I knew technology was a huge part of the story.  My in-laws lived in Goettingen on the Prinzenstrasse on the 4th floor of an office building.  I went through the phone book to make sure there was not already a computer institute.  Whew!  There was not.  I came up with the name "Institute for Advanced Computing" and created Dr. Mittelstadt, Jacob Loose, Marcus, Christof, Marlies and Verena.  All the folks who worked there.

Did you catch my beginning author boo-boo.  Marcus and Marlies.  Never have character names that are too similiar.

Recipes from the Shadow Warriors

The Shadow Warriors is certainly NOT a cozy mystery, so why are there recipes?  Because, that's why, and here they are for your delectation.  Emma is the protagonist, the heroine if you will, although sometimes she is very unheroic.

Emma bought a well-thumbed copy of Elizabeth Schuler’s German Cookery at a rummage sale in Wisconsin, and hoped the recipe she found in it was as tasty as Frau Eisenach’s.  Pflaumenkuchen. Since Emma thought it was, she wanted to share that recipe and a couple of others with you.]

Plum Tart

1 recipe sweet mellow dough (see below)

2 lbs. Prune plums (sometimes called Italian prune plums)

¾ cup sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ cup chopped almonds.

Prepare dough (see following recipe) and line a greased cake tin with it (Emma used a 10 inch fluted tart pan with a removable bottom). Pit the plums and arrange in a circle on the dough. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and almonds. Bake in a fairly hot (375º) oven for 30 minutes.

Mellow Dough, Sweet

2 cups flour

1 stick (¼ lb.) butter

½ cup sugar

1 egg

Pinch of salt

1 tsp. Baking powder

Mix all ingredients and, on a breadboard, knead to a supple dough. Roll out (Emma spreads it right into the pan with her fingers) and line a tart pan. Due to high butter content, chill a bit before baking.

***

Frau Eisenach finds a better selection of smoked meats in the Göttingen markets than Emma finds Stateside. Frau Eisenach’s recipe for Kassler calls for a smoked pork rib roast; however, Emma feels fortunate when she can find smoked pork chops. When she does, she makes--

Kassler Rippenspeer.

4 –6 smoked pork chops

1 onion, chopped 

1 tomato, chopped

2 ribs of celery, sliced thin

A half dozen mushrooms (thinly sliced)

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

Freshly ground pepper

Salt

2 T. canola oil or 1 T. oil and 1 T. butter or lard

In a skillet large enough to hold the meat in one layer, brown chops in oil. Remove from pan and add vegetables. Cook and stir until onion is wilted and transparent. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Place chops on bed of vegetables and add 1 cup liquid. Emma uses a mixture of dry white whine and beef broth.) Cover and bake for one hour a 325º. Serve with mashed potatoes and a salad.

***

Like her mother and grandmother before her, Emma seldom cooks straight from a recipe. The quantity of the ingredients can be adjusted according to what’s on hand. A few chopped mushrooms could be added along with the tomatoes to:

Frau Eisenach’s Hoppel-Poppel

For 2 persons:

2-3 slices of bacon cut into ¼ inch pieces

1 small boiled potato, peeled and cut into ¼ inch dice

¼ onion, minced

4 eggs, beaten with 1 T. water

2 T. chopped chives (fresh are best)

1 T. butter

salt and pepper

½ tomato, seeded and juiced and chopped into ¼ inch dice

Brown the bacon in a heavy skillet. Emma likes the big cast iron skillets her grandmother used. Heavy?  Yes, but hoisting them around the kitchen does tone the arm muscles. Remove the bacon and cook the onion and potato in the remaining fat. When the potato is slightly browned, add the chopped tomato. Cook and stir for a minute or two, then add the butter, eggs and chives. Continue to cook and stir over low heat until the eggs are cooked. Season with salt and pepper. Serve right from the skillet.

***

Renate Mittelstadt made a delicious fruit salad for Verena’s party at the Ballhaus. When Emma asked why it tasted so special, Renate shared her secret: two tablespoons of Apfel Korn (a mild apple liqueur). Kirshwasser, Apple Jack, Calvados, or even rum can be used as a substitute.

Renate’s Fruit Salad

Use some or all of the fruits listed: 

Raspberries

Strawberries

Blueberries

Peaches (skin removed)

Nectarines (skin removed)

Bananas

Grapes

Apples (peeled)

Oranges

Dried Cranberries (for color in winter)

Melons

A little sugar depending on the sourness of the fruit

2 T. Apfel Korn or a substitute

Emma likes to add a few chopped pecans or walnuts. If she feels industrious, she toasts the nuts first. The salad can be made with as few as three fruits. Try to vary the colors. Serve plain or with a dab of whipped cream.

***

Goulash Soup is found is many restaurants in Germany and Austria. Emma eats it summer and winter, but she’s more likely to cook up a pot in winter. The recipe below serves 3-4, but can be doubled.

Goulash Soup

1 pound boneless sirloin or top round steak

2 T. vegetable oil (Emma likes Canola)

2 cups finely chopped onions

2 t. finely minced garlic

1 red or green pepper, diced

1 carrot, diced

2 boiling potatoes, peeled and diced

1 t. caraway seeds

2 cups fresh or canned red tomatoes

1 T. sweet or hot Hungarian paprika (Emma uses some of both)

1 bay leaf (optional)

Salt and pepper

3 cups beef broth

Sour cream

1. Trim the meet and cut into half-inch cubes

2. Heat the oil in a large heavy saucepan. Add meat and brown.

3. Add the onions, garlic, green pepper and carrot. Cook stirring, for a few minutes. Add all the seasonings. Add the tomatoes and potatoes. Cook, stirring occasionally for about one hour.

Place a dollop of sour cream on each serving. Serve with a good rye bread and a cucumber salad.

Guten Appetit!

Errand in Hong Kong

The author in Hong Kong in the nineties

The narrator, Emma,  must pick up some tapes from a scary man in Hong Kong.  The year is 1989.

CHAPTER 3

Hong Kong,

What a hassle! My flight arrived late and I barely had time to check into my hotel and change before my appointment.

I kept trying to remember Franz’s last minute instructions.  Keep the calling cards pristine.  Don’t use them as book marks or tooth picks.  Arrive on time.  Present the cards with both hands after the handshake.

My taxi stopped at a soaring skyscraper of steel and smoked glass on Connaught Road in Victoria. He’ll be expecting you between three and four, Franz had said.  I walked through the elegant rosewood lobby, and took the swift, silent elevator to Suite Eight on the Eightieth floor.  Eight is a lucky number in Chinese cultures.  My appointment was with Mr. Ocho Lee of South China Software. I had to keep wiping my damp hands on a handkerchief lest I soil the business cards, and I scrutinized my suit for spots or smudges. 

Suite Eight had thick red carpeting, white walls, and sleek lacquered black furniture. Feng Shui to the max. A petite receptionist in a red dress ushered me into a private office. 

A man in a black pinstriped suit, a white shirt, and a yellow paisley tie sat at a teak table, empty except for a jade chess set. He had the softest hand I ever shook. Just as Franz had coached, I presented three calling cards: Franz’s, Dr. Mittelstadt's and mine.  Mr. Lee placed them in a neat arrangement in front of him.

“Miss Emma Lee Davis representing Dr. Franz Nemecek, Dr. Mittelstadt’s delegate?”  The voice was so muted that I strained to hear.

“Yes.” 
 He gestured toward a chair.  I had to pull my eyes away from the hypnotic view over Hong Kong, north to the Kowloon hills, and beyond to the New Territories and China.  Below us, ferries, wooden junks and freighters from every port of call criss-crossed the busy harbor while jets took off and landed over the water in the east.

 At first I wondered if Mr. Lee was albino, but he was just pale: white skin, alabaster hair, chalky brows, and lashes.  Milky blue eyes smiled at me without geniality or mirth.  He wasn’t Asian, and his accent was an absence, neither English nor American. His unlined face could be thirty or forty or even fifty.

Abstract oils lined the walls, but their stiff twisted forms repelled me.  In the bloody reds and the angry daubs of orange, I imagined executions and disemboweling, torture and mutilation, even more appalling for being subliminal.

"Do you admire my art collection?"  The soft unaccented voice had asked, breaking the silence. 

"Interesting.  Very intense."  I tried to be noncommittal.

Ocho Lee’s pale eyes forged a smile.

Not bothering to conceal his interest, he cast an auctioneer's glance over my suit, my shoes, my handbag, even my wristwatch.  He looked absolutely sure of his knowledge, as if he could pronounce a value for each piece separately, or for the total package.

“May I please have the tape?” I asked, making an effort to sound polite.

“Won’t you join me for tea?”

Remembering how adamant Franz was about avoiding conflict and causing Mr. Lee to lose face, I said, “I’m so sorry, but I’m meeting my husband’s five o’clock flight.” 

Bleached blue eyes met mine, quietly, patiently, attempting to gauge character and personality. 

"Your husband is also associated with computers?"

"Oh, no.” 

"Will you be staying on as tourists?" he asked with polite disinterest?

I didn’t want to tell him any details about myself or Roger or our plans.  I just wanted to leave.  My diction began to borrow the formality of his speech.

"I do regret that I am pressed for time. May I have the tape, please?"

A suggestion of petulance played about his soft grayish lips.

 "Pity.  Americans hurry so.  Stress is dangerous for the body.  And the mind."  His silky hand gestured toward the chess set.  "You in the West should practice...avoidance," he said, and I heard the soft warning in his voice.

"Yes."

When he handed me the tape, I felt the velvety hand again, and suppressed a shudder.

  "The present difficulties can be remedied. ”He paused for emphasis, and I must have looked dim, for he continued, “South China Software is anxious to obtain more development projects in the West."  His voice both insinuating and ingratiating.  “We are aggressively… competitive.” 

I popped the tape into my handbag, muttered some polite inanities and made my escape.  Riding down in the elevator, I noticed my once crisp white linen suit was limp and wrinkled.

Welcome Italia and Espana

The Shadow Warriors is now available on Amazon in Italy and in Spain.  I'm so excited about Spain after just having traveled there.  We were so impressed with the history, the art, culture, the superb hams and the wonderful paradores.  So much to take in. My feet have just about recovered from the cobblestones.  I've always adored Italy, too.  So cool to walk into a tiny trattoria and when the waiter appears without menu, just say "Lasagne Verde,"  and you will be served lasagne verde.  Hello and welcome to Italy and Spain.  If you read English, you may like The Shadow Warriors.

A few weeks ago, I cleaned out my huge "research" file that I used to write The Shadow Warriors and a couple of other as yet unsold computer crime novels.   Computer research done in the nineties is history, old history,  as old today as when the Moors were in Spain.  I tossed it all, with much ruing and many regretful pangs.  Gone.  Done. Out.

Parador in Carmona

The Burning Man novel,  (unsold) is still technologically current, because I imagined technology that might be around the corner, bleeding edge technology.  The novel I will try to sell now, a woman in jeopardy book,  has a stolen laptop loaded with "LoJack for Laptops."   Nothing else very high tech.  The novel I am currently writing is set in Southern California in 1928.  No technology to speak of.  Talkies coming in, trams everywhere, Prohibition, the Black Bottom, cool old cars.  It's hard to put your head into another place and time, but once you get it, it won't change on you.

Computer crime will read its ugly head as long as there are computers.  How do you like them apples?                      

Thanksgiving in Gøttingen

Many years ago, a relative visited us in Chicago on Thanksgiving.  The turkey was very impressive, and he said whole turkeys were  expensive in Germany.  The day after (this was before black Friday), we bought a  large frozen turkey at half price.  We scoured suburban Chicago for a stryrofoam cooler, and finally found one at the local hardware store, high on a shelf waiting for spring.

Said relative packed the turkey into the cooler and took it as hand luggage aboard the flight to Frankfurt.  Going thru customs, he was asked for his Meat Importer's License, because obviously so much turkey must be to carve up and sell.  After a long explanation, the customs agent, in very unGerman fashion, threw up his arms and waved him and the turkey through the line.

When we flew over (via London) at Christmastime, we brought  sweet potatoes, pumpkin, cranberries, stuffing mix and the rest of the fixins.  Saw a turkey for $100 at Harrods fool hall.  Yikes.

 It was hard to find ground veal and shallots in Germany in those days (the veal was minced, not ground) but we perservered, and I cooked up a big holiday feast for the whole familyin my mother-in-laws post-war kitchen.  The stove was primitive, but she did have a new fridge that held more than a watermelon and a six-pack.  It was a wonderful time.

Cross-cultural exchanges, even among families can be illuminating, and we should all  try to understand different cultures.  I have been reading Washington Irving's "Tales from the Alhambra" and it is very illuminating apropos the Moors in Spain.  Did you know that in the early Middle Ages, the Jew, Moors and Catholics were able to co-exist in Southern Spain?  How is it that they can't now?  Makes you wonder.  

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  In The Shadow Warriors, Emma, the narrator, makes a Caesar Salad to take to a party with many international students. Someone dances the Lambada.  I always think of that when Lambada comes up on the tape in my aerobics class.  What a crazy world.

Another cool information warfare site!

Infowar Monitor
 The revolutions in the Middle East are also being fought on the net, Facebook and even Twitter.  In fact a Tweeter observed the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound, wondering WTF?


The Syrians, as one might expect, have tried to usurp cyberspace for the own devious aims.  See the above link. 

Information Warfare Web site

Any readers or potential readers of The Shadow Warriors might want to learn more about Information Warfare.  This is a great site that has all the latest hacks and attempted hacks.  
Information Warfare Web Site 

The info warriors have to stay on the cutting edge, no, make that the bleeding edge of technology. 

Poster Art In Göttingen

Poster Art in Göttingen

Something not seen in the U.S. are kiosks full of colorful posters advertising concerts, theater events, etc.  That is one of the things we always photograph in Europe.  Here is a sample.

Another lovely feature of European cities are the flower vendors and the custom of bringing flowers for one's hostess.  I hope this custom is still alive and well.  Here is a flower vendor.   Emma, the protagonist of The Shadow Warriors, always had a vase of flowers in her room.  She missed her garden. 

The University town of Göttingen and The Shadow Warriors

Frau Eisenach, a character in The Shadow Warriors, lives on Geiststrasse, or Ghost Street. She is an old lady in a house dress who wears carpet slippers because of a painful bunion, but she is good to my main character who stops by to visit (and to eat) every now and then. Frau Eisenach cooks up a skillet of "hoppel-poppel", bacon, egg, onion,  boiled potatoes and tomatoes fried together.  An easy, delicious supper, by the way.  The University town of Goettingen is the setting for most of the scenes of The Shadow Warriors.  I made up the "Institute for Advanced Computing," but it was based on a real building.  Over the years, what is real and what I made up have sort of merged together.   Totally weird.



My inlaws lived in the town for years and I visited often, until it was easy to write about.  When I wrote the protest march scene and others I went to the library and found the microfilm of some of the events.  My nephew took me pub-hopping and several scenes resulted from that evening.   It was really fun to put my characters into the scenes and see what they would do. 


In the next post, I'll confess how I found many of my local characters.  

Add caption

Here is where the good Frau Eisenach lived. 

Incident at Stanley Market: The Shadow Warriors

Stanley Market Hong Kong

Our driver promised to pick us up in thirty minutes. I bought a frozen coconut bar from a vendor's cart, and looked around while I slurped it down. The market was a bazaar, just a warren of alleyways filled with booths all jammed with cheap-looking junk: sneakers, T-shirts, kimonos, lime green warm up-suits and gewgaws of international bad taste.  

             I lost Roger and Franz when they wandered into a shop selling tennis clothes, and I went on to paw through some hideous lingerie. Waste of time. When I beat it back to the tennis store, they were gone. It was definitely time for a fur fix, and I made friends with a calico cat lying between two big wicker baskets in a food stall.   

            Wandering through the market,  I killed time by taking photographs and watching people. Otherwise, I wouldn't have even noticed the two men in the shoe stall. My god, they were the same pair Peter and I had seen on the Singapore bus and then at Sentosa beach! The older, dark-eyed one was talking to his sidekick, who was examining the sneakers with so much concentration I expected him to whip out tags saying, “inspected by number 12,” and stick them onto the shoes. Dark Eyes spoke a mile a minute in a language I didn’t recognize. Then he stopped talking, and cast a quick glance all around the booth. Those hard eyes and that face with a permanent five o'clock shadow gave me the creeps, so much so that I ducked out of sight. I peered around the corner at them again. One inspecting, one gabbing, just like before. 

I aimed my little Olympus at them, pushed the zoom button, and snapped their picture, which was really stupid in retrospect, because I hadn’t calculated that the dim light in the recess of  stall would activate the camera's flash. A few people looked up, and then returned to their shopping. No such luck with this pair. For an instant they both froze, and then Dark Eyes glared at me. His mouth was all twisted, and before I could react, he charged around the corner of the display table toward me. His buddy hadn’t moved.

            The strap around my neck saved the camera from crashing to the ground, as he grabbed my arm.

            "What are you doing? What is the idea of taking my photograph?” He had a rough foreign voice, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the little polo player on his blue shirt.

             I said something really snappy, like,  "Not you. I'm...I’m taking pictures of everything. "   

            "I will have your film,” he said under his breath.

            I said, "Leave me alone." My heart pounded and I just wanted to get out of there.

            A Chinese man came up and asked, "Is there problem?"

            Dark Eyes dropped my arm and backed off. 

            "I was just taking some photographs of the market. Is that all right?"

I didn’t know if he understood me or not. He said, "If problem, I call police."

Dark Eyes said "No problem.” His companion stood and stared at us along with the other customers. The Chinese man strode behind the counter. He must have been the proprietor, and he obviously wanted us to leave.

            Like in a movie, I took off doing a panicky dodge through the maze of shops. I found the hideous lingerie shop again, grabbed a nightgown and charged into a dressing room about the size of a toilet stall. I cowered in there for what seemed like a long time. When I peered through the curtain, I didn’t see them. Again, just like in a chase scene, I heard some indignant shouts in Chinese as I hustled through the storeroom and out the back door.

The Shadow Warriors in Asia

Durians in a Hong Kong Market

All the Asia scenes in The Shadow Warriors were framed by a trip I took to Singapore and Hong Kong.  When I traveled there, the furthest thing on my mind was to write about it, but wouldn't you know, on the flight home (and it is a VERY long flight,)  a blurb in the Singapore Airlines magazine caught my eye.  The  International Computer Security Conference would take place in Singapore at Raffles Place in May.  I had such fun with the writing.  No plot and just my little trio of characters, Emma, Franz and Wayne. 


Back then, as a "new" writer, I took chances I wouldn't dream of now, introducing and writing about a character before I had any idea of who he was.  This type of writer is called a "Pantser" because she writes by the seat of her pants.  The other kind of writer is a "plotter," and she figures out some of the plot, at least, before she plants her butt in the chair.  


I have to confess that Lotto Lopaz, the Colombian Drug Lord in my WIP (work in process) came to life more or less in the "pantser" way.  It took a while to get to know Lotto,  and then after a while I did, and he was totally against the stereotype and pretty soon my writing group started to feel sorry for him, and then I knew I was doing an O.K. job. 


Believe me, it is a stretch for a suburban housewife to began channeling a drug lord, but eventually, I think, it worked. 


The Shadow Warriors expanded to 140,000 words (again, a beginner's mistake) and I spent months paring words.  Unfortunately, the durians, delectable and smelly as they were, did not advance the plot and had to go.  

A pub in Göttingen

My nephew took me pub crawling when I did research for The Shadow Warriors.  Of all the bars we visited, the one described below was the most interesting.  I changed it's name and I'm sure the interior has changed in the passing years.  I made up the music, the crowd and even the "disco whisperer."

We retreated back along wet sidewalks toward the center of town, for Marcus and Christof had decided we should top the evening off with a visit to a disco. Marcus turned into a wide but dilapidated entryway, which led into a dim, blue-lit cave. Behind a counter, an aging longhair collected a few marks cover charge, and stamped Euclid across the backs of our hands in neat purple letters.

We advanced further into the cave, which had a seedy, disreputable look, with sloppily painted walls and cigarette butts ground into the concrete floor. Now we heard voices over a pulsing beat, and met a phalanx of bodies, noise and smoke. We pushed our way into a large dark room. Above the heads of the mob of drinkers, the skylines of Paris, Moscow, New York and London were painted starkly on the walls. 

Again, with nowhere to sit, we stood together in the crunch of bodies and guzzled beer. Time was a rubber band, stretched taut at one moment, slack the next, and in its elastic intervals, I didn't know if we'd been drinking there for a few minutes or a few hours.

From the dance floor, the music called with demon logic. Marcus had disappeared to order more beer, and Christof asked in his best English, "You dance, Ms. Davis, pardon, you dance, Emma?"

           

"Thought you'd never ask," I cooed.

Christof steered me through the swarm and up a few stairs to a packed dance floor. The number was over, and a few couples left, so we did a crowd swim and squeezed in. The Village People's “Macho Man” started pulsing, and the dancer's began moving. In my dopey universe, I felt a pleasant intimacy in the boozy closeness of strangers. Bodies twisting, elbows pumping, Christof and I were really getting into the spirit. I heard the low voice, but it wasn't until a hand touched my shoulder that I registered that the voice speaking to me.

            "Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. E. Robinson, why do you follow me?"

            Crazies on the dance floor. I didn't turn to look, but a tiny alarm sounded. A moment later, the voice spoke to me again.           

            "You are making life difficult, Mrs. Robinson. Difficult for me. Dangerous for you. Go home and sit on your sofa."

            Goofy English with an odd, non-German accent, succinct and scary. I tried to twist around to look at this joker, but the dancers surged, blocking me. When at last I turned around, I didn't recognize anyone.

            With his knees bent, and his arms flung out, Christof hurled himself about like a crazed St. Vitas.

            "Mrs. Robinson, do you still have the photographs?"

            Soft with menace, the disembodied voice approached my ear again. I tried to bring up some intelligence, but my brain was too deep into the twin narcosis of booze and pot, and I was simply afraid.

            "Get out of Göttingen,  Mrs. Robinson. Go back to Hong Kong. Or Singapore."

            Jesus! I whirled and danced with the stranger behind me. He grinned and gyrated, too friendly to be the Whisperer. The throb and thump of the music stopped, then ABBA started it up again. Trying to find a face to attach to the voice, I stared over the room at hundreds of faces, but they were all intent on pulling the most pleasure out of a rainy Friday night.

            Then I saw him, slipping into the cave that led to the entrance, the man from Stanley Market, the angry man I knew in my mind as “Dark Eyes.” His glance flickered back to the dance floor, and our eyes met. He smiled with his lips and teeth, raised his arm, pointed his index finger right at me, and slowly squeezed an imaginary trigger. Then he disappeared into the blue cave.

           

The Shadow Warriors is now on Kindle

Too late for Christmas, but in plenty of time for the long New England winter, my novel The Shadow Warriors is now available from Amazon on the Kindle.  The Shadow Warriors began life way back in 2001 as an e-book.  How is that possible?  I found a small e-book publisher and latched onto the technology before most readers had heard of it and long before the Kindle.  The publisher went belly up, and I got back my rights and published with Booksurge, now Createspace.

This fall I decided it was time to get the novel of technology on the latest technology.  Voila!

This blog will be devoted to all things Shadow Warriors:  the genesis of the book, photos of where scenes are set, some discussions of information warfare and other novels of technology.  We will talk about the element of fiction and also technology and some very scary stuff.  Come back often.