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The Onion Files
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The Onion Files
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The Onion Files
Ebook377 pages5 hours

The Onion Files

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The Onion Files is a novel set in today’s world of apprehension and anxiety fueled by terrorism. An al Qaeda group plots ruin greater than 9/11 by breaching hydroelectric dams across the US. Jim Buchan, a retired CIA director of operations and his son Mark, a computer expert, discuss one of Jim’s cases from the Cold War, code-named the Onion Files, a KGB cyber attack against the US financial system. Mark does some hacking to see if infrastructure might be at risk from terrorists. It is the early days of cyber security, few aware of the increasing use of software in critical systems. Mark discovers something that Jim recognizes from his past. The screen leads Mark to Kazim, Jim’s old nemesis from KGB days, now with bin Laden in the wilds of Afghanistan. As the al Qaeda plan for the 9/11 attack is put in place, Kazim is proud that his own steps will lead to flooding, his software taking control of hydro electric dams across the US.
Leigh, Jim’s wife, had accepted the years when Jim was on the front lines of espionage. She had followed world affairs closely, and when Jim retired she had completed her PhD, her dissertation examining a future of information sharing that she saw coming with the development of the Internet. Jim knew that with the research Leigh was doing she was more current than he was on the big issues of the world. He was proud to lean on her for his intelligence.
During the Cold War Jim met KGB General Illyich Makov at a reception during arms limitation talks, their relationship leading to a measure of mutual respect, turning to friendship. Illyich had called Jim to warn him about Kazim’s plot against the US financial system as the Soviet Union spun apart. That call led Jim to St. Petersburg, to Kazim, and to Jim being med-evaced by the KGB after being shot. Now Jim calls Illyich to enlist his help to find Kazim in time to head off his attack on the dams. And Illyich calls on still serving KGB colleagues to provide the linkages to intelligence agencies on both sides of the old Iron Curtain.
An air strike in the no-fly zone in Iraq has inadvertent consequences, setting the stage for an idealistic Iraqi-American, David, to question his heritage and his beliefs. Al Qaeda’s reach and duplicity stretch to California to ensnare David to Kazim’s cause. Kazim now has the backdoor key to software that operates dams across the country. Another al Qaeda spectacular is about to bring destruction to the nation.
Jim is sure that the only avenue to Kazim is through Russia. As Jim and Mark meet with Illyich at his home in Sochi, Russia, Mark realizes that he has met the girl of his dreams, Illyich’s granddaughter, Katrina. But Mark comes close to death as Kazim sees his plans start to unravel. Jim’s old FBI colleagues stretch their mandates for a dramatic rescue, the close call moving Mark’s and Katrina’s romance as fast as the plot itself.
Old colleagues from Jim’s spying days join the hunt. Illyich marshals Russian and Turkish agents in Europe, while an old grad school colleague of Jim’s, an Arab sheik, is able to send Jim’s message to Kazim in the ungoverned region of Afghanistan. That message lures Kazim to Istanbul where Jim and Illyich spring their trap. After a fiery engagement on the Black Sea, Kazim’s narrow escape points the way to bin Laden.
Jim’s experience, combined with Mark’s ingenuity, keeps them one step ahead of disaster, but Kazim’s onion is not easily pealed. At the eleventh hour Homeland Security issues orders to the dams and briefs the President, but Kazim has devised his software to stay one step ahead of Mark.
The Buchans’ pursuit takes them across the country, to Russia, to Sardinia, and to Istanbul. The race to the finish takes place while the Buchan family is being honored by the President, but Kazim has arranged for a different message. A Special Forces team in Afghanistan is ambushed in a valley, the enemy leaving behind only Kazim’s message to the Buchans: jihad is not

LanguageEnglish
PublisherVal Pattee
Release dateMar 18, 2017
ISBN9781370174508
Unavailable
The Onion Files
Author

Val Pattee

As a young fighter pilot I patrolled the Iron Curtain with loaded guns, World War III a mere trigger finger away. When I finished my career I was the Chief of Intelligence for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Europe and for Canada. In those capacities I lived daily with the real life fodder that makes for suspense thrillers – for instance, from my fighter jet, the F86 Sabre, while MIGs watched from across the buffer zone, to later as Soviet battle commanders in the guise of lorry drivers reconnoitered their targets in Europe. When I started writing I wanted my novels to relate to today’s realities, daily front line news, to be plausible, with characters built around the actual people I worked with. A challenge was how to tell the story without violating my high level security clearances, which apply for life. I was in at the beginning of cyber threats and well aware of the vulnerability of our infrastructure. The themes of both The Onion Files and The Crescent Onion are topical, and are regularly discussed and reflected in the media. I worked closely with a former commander of the United States Defense Intelligence Agency. He thoroughly enjoyed the story and agreed that The Onion Files could be real. He applauded the Buchan family’s unconventional intel and security actions that prevented disaster and recommended that his staff read The Onion Files. The Crescent Onion continues the cyber threat to America. The Buchan family computer skills and wide range of intelligence contacts save Miami. As my manuscripts hint, I disagree at times with policies and operations that have taken us to combat in the Middle East and the threat of terror attacks at home. Jim Buchan, the central character in the stories, reflects my views and has something to contribute to the ongoing dialogue around our war on terror. Like Tom Clancy’s hero, Jack Ryan, Jim Buchan’s contacts and out-of-the-box approach to security threats succeed where official channels could not. The Onion Files and The Crescent Onion compare favorably with best selling suspense thrillers, the plot and characters closer to reality than many. Readers of The Onion Files ask two questions–when can they read the sequel, The Crescent Onion, and when can they see the movie. I had the making of suspense thrillers in mind throughout my whole Royal Canadian Air Force and Public Service careers. The last period of my military service was at the top level of Cold War Intelligence, my daily intelligence briefing packed with the possibilities of plots for my novels. I started putting fingers to keyboard soon after I retired. Over the years I had good secretarial assistance, so like most of my generation, couldn’t type. It was my son Richard who twisted my arms to move me slowly into the computer age. As I started to capture ideas, I found that I had a major concern—I had top level security clearances, so wrestled with how much I could say. Again, my son solved that dilemma, telling me anytime I got hung up to tell him and he’d find the issue in open sources on the Net. Most everything is now in open sources on the Internet, available to anyone. Dreaming up the plots and writing the stories was fun, but many authors would agree that the challenge then is what to do with the story. After many regrets from literary agents I decided not to wait and linked with an excellent indie publisher. We had good fun putting The Onion Files to press, with the first edition of The Onion Files being one of the early ‘print on demand’ books. When an order is placed it goes to a printer, is produce overnight and mailed the next day, no warehouse full of paper. We did soft cover, hard cover, e-reader and audio versions to excellent reviews and modest sales success. As I got well into my second novel, Crescent Onion, I realized that The Onion Files would benefit from more critical editing. I undertook that task over the next couple of years. I wanted to give traditional publishers another try for my second novel, The The Crescent Onion, so I again did the agonizing Query process, to many agents. The publishing industry moves at glacial speed so for me, accustomed to fast decisions and action, the process is painful. It’s a new world for authors and readers, with books just a key punch away, the whole publishing landscape rapidly evolving. For me, it turned the agonizing publishing process into fun. The Onion Files and The Crescent Onion reflect the almost daily news of cyber terror threats to critical infrastructure.

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