Happy Birthday Camille

...so we had Camille's Yorkies Beau & Belle give her a virtual cake, nearly industructible (and unedible?)to cheer you on your happy birthday.

Help Camille Decide On A Book Cover For Her Latest Novel

This is the opening chapter to help in judging cover suitability. More covers to come soon. Leave comment below please.
......
The Yellow Cab drew up in front of the Foxworth Apartment complex in Annandale, Virginia. The driver shut down the meter and turned to the man in the back seat for payment. Dr. Mahmoud Jassim pulled the fare out of his wallet and placed it in the outstretched hand. Now the driver pressed the automatic trunk opener and motioned his passenger out. The doctor stepped down to the sidewalk and removed his three pieces of luggage from the trunk. The cab drove away.
The British-born Pakistani was bedraggled, exhausted by airport hopping from country to country, beginning in Karachi, to Riyahd’s King Khalid International Airport, to London’s Heathrow where he’d spent several days in meetings, ending at Dulles International. Those moments, as he presented his visa to immigration officials, had been tense and emotionally draining. His passport was in order; still, suspicion was imprinted on the faces of the men at the immigration booth and behind the baggage search counter, leaving his tongue thick and unresponsive.

Now, baggage at his feet, he looked up at the six-story apartment complex, all brick with jutting balconies, surrounded by green lawns. On the third level, Apartment 3-606, his adopted brothers awaited.
At Mahmoud’s knock, the door opened.
"As sala'amu alaikum. Peace be upon you,” Richard Yost greeted him. Just behind him, Dr. Khalid Amin echoed the greeting. “Walaikum as sala'am. And unto you also, peace.
Richard Yost, a recent British immigrant to the United States, ushered him into the two-bedroom apartment. The three men embraced.
“Allah’s blessing and salutations be upon you,” Richard said. “I have prepared for you.”
It was sparse, with just the minimal rented furniture – a wrap-around couch long past its factory issue, single folding chair; long, badly scratched coffee table; two desks, each outfitted with computer and telephone. The doctors’ assigned bedroom held a bunk-bed and single.
“This is temporary,” Richard explained.
In the small kitchen, his Pakistani wife, Shamshad, was preparing their meal – a meatless curry dish combined with eggplant, okra and potatoes. Slim and willowy, she wore a long tunic and baggy pants with a colorful scarf draped around her neck. She nodded a timid greeting to her husband’s new guest. Khalid Amin had arrived ten days earlier.
“Brothers,” Richard said to the two men. “Finally, we are gathered as one. Rest, recompose yourselves. Tonight we will eat and pray. Tomorrow we will talk.
.....

MY SECOND POST - NO MARTINI

Many nice comments and a few questions on my first blog. First, indeed I'm very open to questions. The novel I'm working on ( little hope of publication but it just plain fun) is called The Enemy. One question was why would I undertake something like this. Having finished a simple little pet novel, I was floundering around for a new plot. There was so much "hate Bush" diatribe in the media and among far left liberal thinkers which both offended and hurt me that I was determined to go as deep as I could to satisfy my own thinking. The idea of terrorist plot fiction just seemed to pop into my head at the same time. Perfect match.

Right now I'm working through Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack which is perhaps where I should have begun, but Amazon.com didn't have it in stock. Thanks for responding. It's nice to be here and I'm enjoying my 2-3 hours of writing each day.

After My Second Martini,.. My Very First Blog.

"I'm writing a novel called 'The Enemy.' It's a story about 3 terrorists who enter the United States as medical doctors (a play-off on the recent London and Glasgow bombings -- unsuccesful as they might have been.)

You, dearest brother-in-law, asked me why I insisted on writing something about which I knew nothing. Don't know. Still, I persevered. Almost 3/4's through the book. In order to write it, however, I had to do a great deal of research. I've read everything from 'Inside the CIA,' (Ronald Kessler) to 'Middle East Illusions,' (Naom Chomsky) to 'The Soldier' (about Colin Powell), and many, many more in between. I refused to denigrate the Bush administration without garnering as much understanding as possible.

Sadly, today, I recognize that a party of ideologues (neocons Cheney and his accolytes, perhaps Rumsfeld) insisted of developing a case for the war in Iraq, rather than responding to a direct threat. Colin Powell was the one dissenting voice in the first four years of Bush's presidency. Powell fought a good battle but, as a soldier, ultimately bowed to the his superior's wishes, believing in the 'facts' provided to him by the CIA. I've found him to be a good and honest man, one with an unbeatable record of service to our country. Someone I would have thankfully supported for President. But he was destroyed, asked to resign as Bush went into his second term, as were any of those with dissenting voices.

I am an American (ex-Canadian for 40 years); I love and am intensely loyal to my country. I am a Republican, resistant to a welfare and high tax state. Over and over again, I thank the young men and women who are sacrificing their blood in this Iraqi warfront. You don't think it's a war? Tell it to our soldiers.

How do we get out of this ugliness? To date, my vote will be for Mitt Romney, who has proven himself to be a superb financier and business leader. Someone I believe will not be deluded by special interest/far left ideologies.

P.S. If you're one of those who espouses a 9/11 conspiracy by the American government, go take a deep dip in the fires of hell.

Response to Samantha Powers's review of Chomsky

Just finished Chomsky's "Middle East Illusions." It was an eye opener, indeed -- a devastating indictment of U.S. foreign meddling to date. Like Samantha Power, I marked up the passages that were thin and/or unsubstantiated -- and there were many. Still, his writings, as Powers' so eloquently expounds in her review give a bird's eye view of what the rest of the international community views our policy makers, if not the American public at large.

NOTE:

This is by Camille although the signature is mine.

In the future she will blog directly