Patriot Acts: Patriot Acts Series, Vol. 1

By Steven Clark Bradley

In Patriot Acts, America finds itself under covert nuclear attack from the Islamic Republic of Iran which has linked up with radical American Militia groups. They have set aside their political and religious differences to carry out the widest attack to America in the nation 's history. Colonel Fisher Harrison, the best trained Special Ops killer the military has, is the only one person who can effectively retaliate against their aggression. The only problem is that Colonel Fisher is in a federal prison, framed for a murder he did not commit by his former boss who is now the President of the United States of America. Take an amazing journey from Alaska to the Midwest and to the center of the Islamic Republic of Iran as two enemies unite to save the nation from two adversaries in league to bring the country to its knees. You will be amazed how close to home and to reality Patriot Acts could be!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Words Inc.
• Release date: Nov 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781594316340

Book preview

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Patriot Acts

Patriot Acts Series, Vol. 1

Steven Clark Bradley

Published at Smashwords by Write Words, Inc.

©2008 .text and cover Steven Clark Bradley All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-59431-634-0

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."

— Abraham Lincoln

Introduction

There are some stark days ahead for the United States in its efforts to stop the Islamic Republic of Iran from developing nuclear weapons. There is an intrinsic need to deal with Iran, which is in the process of building a nuclear reactor and enriching uranium that it says would be used for its energy needs. Now we see that this nation has been thrust upon the world stage and is now at the center of international debate regarding its nuclear ambitions. Therefore, it is only logical that we should take a look at whether this fanatical Shiite State should be allowed to possess such technology. Does a land that is sitting on a sea of oil really have energy needs that could not be met by its massive reserve of crude? Would it be wise to trust the nation that launched the present wave of terror throughout the world in 1979 with a nuclear arsenal? Can we continue to work closely with any nation, such as Russia, that would help Iran to achieve this goal? These are questions that must be answered.

During the past years, the United States has made advances toward Iran to offer them alternatives to building the bomb. There are many reasons why America would want to make such offers to Iran. One motivation is that America has to show her wimpiest allies that we are ready to offer cooperation with them and to renew alliances that were strained by the war in Iraq. We have offered olive branches to Iran in an effort to appease them while Russia has pressed ahead in its provision of nuclear fuel to Iran. In addition, America has to buy time to get Iraq somewhat stabilized so that we can have the troops available for round three in the war on terror.

Finally, there is a growing movement of revolutionary fervor building inside Iran for real freedom. They are not crying out for Western style freedom. For, no nation on the face of the Earth has a copyright of the cravings of liberty in the heart of man. So, there is no room for a breather, no way to take a vacation, and there is no alternative to taking these evil men from power to keep the world safe for civilization! Let all these maneuvers come as they must, but rest assured that even now, the various offices of strategy in the United States are making preparations for war with the Tehran terrorist regime.

There can be no victory in the war on terror without taking out the main sponsors of the war. The government of Iran must be removed. Just look at what Iran has produced since its founding as the world’s first major terrorist government in 1979. Fundamentally, Iran’s ideological doctrine, its strategic goals and its political craving to control the Middle East have not changed since Khomeini’s ascent to power in 1979. In short, Iran has employed terrorism as its weapon of choice since the beginning of the revolutionary Islamic regime to achieve these aims. Terrorism is a State sponsored weapon of Iranian foreign policy.

Iranian researcher and historian, Yael Shahar pointed out that terrorism has served the regime of the ayatollahs as a tool of both domestic and foreign policy since the Islamic revolution in 1979. This policy has been directed against Iranian citizens inside Iran, as well as against advocates of opposition views, in exile. Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism has bridged ideological gaps and political divides. Teheran has provided arms and training to such groups as Gama’a al-Islamiyah, Egyptian al-Jihad, and Algerian G.I.A. Al-Qaeda has also benefited from Iranian support and expertise for more than a decade. More recently, this support has taken the form of free passage for al-Qaeda activists seeking to establish a foothold in Lebanon. There are also signs that al-Qaeda has sought the help of Iran in deepening it involvement in Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

The triumph of the Iranian revolution in February 1979 kindled a burst of radical actions by Iran that only merit the title of terrorism. These include kidnapings sanctioned and sponsored by the government itself, such as the taking of American hostages in the first years of the revolution, and reputed Iranian support for and suspected direct involvement in Hezbollah operations in Lebanon, including the bombings of United States installations and hostage-taking throughout the 1980s.

During the Iran-Iraq War, Iran pursued a strategy of maritime terror, using unmarked gunboats and floating mines to attack noncombatant shipping. Numerous assassinations of enemies abroad in the late 1980s and 1990s were widely and persuasively attributed to Iranian official sponsorship, and Iran was accused of sponsoring operations by other militant organizations, such as the Argentinean bombings of 1992 and 1994 and the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, attributed to Hezbollah organizations in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Iran is currently suspected of supporting terrorist acts against Israel through its support of radical Palestinian factions.

We may never have all the facts about many of the terrorist incidents of which Iran is accused. Assuming, however, that the following discussion of Iran’s record on terrorism and the main driving forces of that record are at least roughly accurate, certain conclusions can be drawn about Iranian policy on terrorism. Iran remains the ideological center of the America-hatred pervading the Islamic Middle East. That theocracy began warring with America when its rulers took 52 Americans hostage in 1979. Highlights of Iran’s terrorism on Americans include the bombing and murder of 241 Marines in Beirut in 1983 and the killing of 19 US servicemen bombed at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. More recently, Iran is known to harbor Al Qaeda operatives who orchestrated the bombing of a Western residential compound in Saudi Arabia in 1993 that killed nine Americans. Iran sends Islamic agitators and militants into both US-controlled Iraq and Afghanistan, and sponsors such terrorist groups as Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

It is obvious that Iran is the root of Islamic terrorism. Only in destroying the Theocracy can we finally declare a major victory in the war on terror. Meanwhile, the Iranian rebels fight to establish a government that will be secular in nature but Islamic in principle. As long as the Iran of today continues, the war on Terror will never end. Furthermore, if this terrorist regime is allowed to possess a nuclear bomb, there will be a very good chance the war on terror will be lost.

These are just a few facts that reveal that the next war has to be with Iran. Though the dangers now revolving around North Korea are explosive indeed, the most pressing area of concern on the globe is Iran. Fear is a lullaby that puts us fatally fast to sleep. America may well be playing the song and dance but there is every indication that war in the land of fanatical Shiites is looming on the horizon. It is okay to dance with a harmless bad dancer. Stepped-on-toes can be mended but it is a fatal mistake to dance with someone who holds a knife to your back. Ambassador Thomas McNamara, U.S. Coordinator for Counter-terrorism has stated that, Our problem is not with Islam, he said. It is with those who use violence and terror to advance their political objectives. It is clear that Ambassador McNamara is short sighted in these words. Radical Islam is all about terrorism as its weapon of control. There can be no compromising with those in Islam who have caused that religion to mutate into a cultish brood of blood-thirsty vermin. There is no alternative to removing them. There is no room for fear or fatigue, and there will be no peace until all the terror-supporting nations have been routed and destroyed.

America is wise to make sure that all its assets are in place. Yet, if America allows Iran to possess nuclear weapons, it will face the same writing on the wall that a biblical king of Persia, (Iran), once faced which spelled his demise. It read, You have been measured with scales and been found wanting! President Bush’s toughest task is not in mustering up the courage to do what is needed. He has already demonstrated that he is up to that task. His and the next president’s task will be to bring a sick, perverse, weak and trembling world along with him. For this war will demand international support in a way that was never needed in Iraq.

Does the West love its freedom? Is America willing to take the measures that without which will render the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq useless? The book you about to read is a depiction of the probable results of inaction and the lack of resolve concerning Iran’s lust for weapons of mass destruction. As you read it, I hope you will compare it to the times in which we live. I predict we will take out this rogue regime and the world and America will be far better for it. For the absence of war does not equal peace. Refusal of war will most certainly spell defeat.

Prologue

March 29, 2009

I know where I’m going, but why I am headed there is a story all its own. As I stare out of this clattering window, I am still replaying it all back in my mind. How did it all come to this? How can friends, almost brothers, so easily dispose of one of their own without the slightest concern for their lives, their families, or their futures? Alas, such was the day and such was a tribute to the success of tyrants.

Staring out this window and listening to the clanging of the chains clamped to the ankles of the men, plunked on their seats like shapeless, wordless bags of bones around me, I can feel the heat of their fear disguised in the mask of deep-seated anger and hatred. As for me, I only question. I am not afraid of what will happen to me in here nor of what I might do while living in here in misfit-land. I am dreadfully concerned about what I will do after I get out. For me, this is but a temporary chance to get a new kind of education and a fresh perspective that will serve me well when the sun rises on the day when I can truly do the work of justice. For, justice is the imaginary synthesis of the nation I would have so readily laid down my life for.

It is strange, all the words we speak in the confines of a controlled environment when we hold none of the cards, turn none of the valves and are incapable of pulling of the levers. All the events we arranged or controlled come back to troll against us like little critters that don’t exactly bite and inflict pain, but only gnaw us numb and aggravate and let us constantly know they are still there. How easy it is to be composed when one is in charge.

In the days before getting into this clanking, clattering beast of burden and heading up to my mountain-top concrete retreat, I cried out and pleaded with God, I beat myself up for being so ready and so willing to be done, used, abused, and betrayed. I contemplated the awful-awful, but I could still hear those who had reserved my seat on this thing. Their laughter and enjoyment at my apparent demise and their assurance that I would never be coming back kept me living just another day.

Snow covered the landscape all around us as the bus bearing the name on its sides of Anvil Mountain Correctional Facility shifted into a lower gear to make it up the steep Alaskan frontier mountain highway on its way to a sully port of their choosing. It was their way of getting me out of the way and my way of preparing for the biggest job of my life.

They said I was a threat, so they simply snatched me away to hide me in some super-secret hellhole simply because now, he was now president. Don’t they know that this is nothing short of training time? I am not a threat. Threats are mere words…anger uttered by way of verbs and an overabundance of adjectives. I did not threaten him. I utterly purposed in my heart to kill him and there are no words that can describe my determination to do so. So, for the time being, surviving has become my reason for being, for learning, for growing and intensifying my soul’s desire. There’d be plenty of time for living and for killing, later.

Part One

Perception Is Everything

Chapter 1

A View from the Back Seat

Iraq, 1991

Fisher Harrison appraised the land of Iraq that was rushing past him as he peeked out from beneath a blanket shielding him from view in the back seat of the taxi that had brought him into the interior of the besieged land. Here, in what was, unofficially deemed, one of the capitals of Kurdistan, he sensed how grueling a life the oil-rich country had imposed upon its impoverished people.

Just getting here and finding a safe way into the country was a challenge all its own, Harrison thought. Getting out will be no less stimulating.

Harrison recalled how it all started when he had landed in Izmir on the Turkish West coast and made his way to Istanbul both by train and ferry boat. He didn’t have a friend between here and Paris where he had boarded his plane and not a word of Turkish, Kurdish or Arabic to help him in any dangerous situation that would most certainly present itself. That was okay. He liked it that way. He had his comrades over the border though, only he and his commanders back home knew it all...why he had forged his way into Saddam’s Iraq. All he knew was that, at the moment, he was lying down in the backseat of a taxi, covered with a blanket and peering out from under it at the mountainous and brown landscape rushing past his hidden eyes through the window above his covered head.

The image in his mind of traveling inland into a country that was currently at war with his own made him both shiver slightly with fear and revel with excitement. The second emotion far outweighed the first, as it always did. It was what drove him…the exhilaration kept him alive. It was what he was trained for, programmed…scripted to do. It didn’t matter how you titled it, his was one of stealth, intrigue and death. His French went through his mind.

C’est mon raison d’être! he thought it and almost spoke it out loud.

He had been speaking French a lot since he had come this far eastward.

It’s safer to be thought of as French than American, at the moment. At any moment, for that matter!" He confirmed for himself.

"The cowardly French never met a war they couldn’t manage to lose or capitulate in. Harrison grumbled. History full of wine, beds full of sex and guns stuffed with roses!" he declared in a whisper.

Still, French appeasement was serving him well just now including the fake French passport. From the beginning to the present, this voyage into peril had captivated him, but it was the beginning of the journey that was flooding his soul and vividly replaying in his mind, just now.

Fisher Harrison had arrived in the Turkish capitol of Ankara, just weeks before. He had not known a soul and was unaware of the surroundings, rendering him ignorant in speech, and though no novice in culture, he was void of friend and encompassed about by foes. The apparent lack of opponents seemed to always resolve itself quite efficiently along the way in each such excursion into chaotic knowledge that he had previously taken. He was sure this one, potentially more chaotic than most, would not disappoint his baser survival instincts.

He knew a lot about Turkey, since knowing was just what he did. This sensible and peaceful nation of forward looking, moderately western-thinking Muslims had been the former Roman province of Asia Minor; the place where the followers of the way had first been called Christians. It was the home of the seven churches of the book of the Revelation. The other thing he discerned was that it was a major center of Islam. In fact, it had been the Caliphate, with the Turkish Sultan serving as the Muslim equivalent of the Catholic Pope in the largest Empire that has ever ruled. That was until Mustapha Kemal Ataturk led his people into the modern world after World War I when he disassembled the dissolving, largest empire the world had ever known.

Harrison was armed with several letters of introduction written by his Kurdish friends, in their own tongue, when he had ended up living at the Besh Yildiz Hotel, which meant to Fisher Harrison that it had to mean the Five Star Hotel, by virture of the five stars next to the name. Harrison stayed there for more than a month before his trudge into the land of Babylon. It had seemed to Harrison that three of the stars had fizzled out of this insect-ridden, human dump some time ago and had never been replaced. It was a dark, dingy place, in the older part of Ankara called Ulus, where most of the radicals made there home and plotted their jihad.

This hotel was filled up with Kurdish refugees who had managed to escape out of Iraq and had somehow helped the US military, in a significant manner, during its fight with Saddam. They had been placed there and told to await permission to come to the States for a new life, as a recompense for their service to the military cause. In the meantime, their lives were abhorrent, but still better than what they had endured in their home land. Though the hotel was infested with roaches, lizards, flies and stunned, frightened people, they were happy and thankful to be out of Saddam’s Iraq; the very place where Fisher Harrison would end up in what would certainly be a trip into the unknown.

During his month-long sojourn, Fisher Harrison had gotten to know three families, in particular, surviving in this hotel. Each of these three families had been from the infamous village of Halabcha on Iraq’s Eastern border with Iran and were amongst the few who had been able to shield themselves from the poison gas that Saddam had exploded in their village during the Iraq/Iran war before invading and annexing his other neighbor, Kuwait. Like human guinea pigs, Saddam had seen how effective his new weapons of mass destruction were by using them on his own Kurdish population. One of the three families had been expecting a child when Saddam committed this evil form quality control and crime against Humanity.

"I saw their child." Harrison reflected as he lay on the backseat of the dust-filled taxi that was barreling down the dirt road, while he remembered his bed in the dark, musty room in the hotel in Ankara while a fourth star burned-out of the neon light that should illuminate but only flickered. The outside kept his thoughts alive.

The child was beautiful and strong with only one striking result of the chemical attack.

"No eyes! My God, she was born without eyes!" Fisher remembered, having had a tough time exclaiming it silently so as to not make the parents’ sorrow deeper than it already was. He felt angry and embarrassed to think that the Americans had really helped Saddam develop the very chemicals that had destroyed their beautiful daughter’s future. He had been unable to respond in his own language to such a travesty of trust and was glad to have not known their language at that disconcerting moment. America was now trying to redeem herself, though Fisher Harrison knew that the UN coalition would not finish the job. Fisher Harrison’s mind finally left that putrid moment and under the cover of the blanket that now barely covered him at all now he dug his mental fangs into his recollection of that next days events.

* * *

Morning seemed to have arrived early, as fast as his eyes had closed. Harrison was glad, since his eyelids had not cooperated with the exhaustion that his brain must have felt, and keeping him wide awake the night before. The sounds and smells told him he was not in Kansas anymore, but he loved it! It was a wild-west experience to sit on the floor, huddled around a large bowel of rice, tomatoes, zucchinis, peppers and grape leaves all stuffed with Middle-Eastern delicacies. Those poor, lost families were amongst the most pleasant people he had ever met. They welcomed him and let him know that they were grateful for what America had done for them. Yet, there was a sadness that the Americans had not gone all the way to Baghdad to rid them of Saddam, so that those who wished to, could return home to their families. There was one young Iraqi who sat quietly directly in front of Fisher. His name was Hassan and he was 21 years old, exactly the same number of years since Fisher had snuck himself into and out of the land of terrified people inside Saddam’s Iraq.

Hassan was a strong, young, somehow elusive, man. Fisher was instantly drawn to him and could see the pain and loneliness and something else he couldn’t make out shrouded behind the young Iraqi’s smile and his attempts at being a strong Muslim man before the only people he now knew and with whom he now ate and slept and cried. Fisher struck up a limited conversation with Hassan, who mostly just listened.

They forced me! I not care they kill me. I be better that way! But what I am to do if it is to join or my mother die? Hassan sought to explain that he had been a member of Saddam’s Republican Guard.

In the Iraq of Saddam, academic skills and my size are not the, what is you say, the assets they are in America.

Though Hassan remained polite and silent about his plight during the communal meal, after he and Fisher found time to talk, Hassan revealed how his decision to defect and to help the Americans had so drastically changed his life, both positively and negatively, mostly the latter and how he was sure that the lack of information to his family had surely broken his mother’s heart.

I know my mother think I dead, Allah Koruson. My choice to leave the land of my birth was simple and very painful, but I was forced to defend this…this tyrant that separate my family. So, the Iraqi military intelligence thinks I am dead. I need die and my parents have to know I dead. If Saddam learn of my treachery, they would kill my parents and my brothers and sister. Saddam’s army cannot be seen now anywhere, but please do not think my people are so naïve as to believe Saddam is gone or that he cannot come back when your country is gone.

Yet, a true friendship developed between the Fisher and Hassan. It was after meeting him and living with all of them for two weeks that Fisher Harrison revealed to Hassan that he had to go to Iraq about a situation that he could not elaborate on. Harrison made Hassan a promise.

Listen my friend. I hate the name, but you can call me Fish. It will be a distinguishing demarcation for us as brothers in a war against tyranny and evil!

Fish? Okay, my friend, I think you are a good man. My training is screaming at me that you have, let us say, um…some special services of some kind to provide inside my country.

Well, Fisher responded. You are perceptive, but only partially right. I truly don’t know about all that ‘good man’ stuff.

Well, I decided that you are a good man. Hassan continued. I have not seen many inside Saddam’s Iraq. Yet, I still believe there are many good people there, and there are many even inside the Republican Guard. I lived not so bad a life serving him. Saddam is poison to have as an enemy, but he take care his own. He’s so careful with those who keep him alive and in power. I am not the only perceptive one here, my friend. I feel you are not just a lost traveler out to lose himself in fields of the fearful people.

Fisher did not respond and Hassan picked up his tea and sipped it with his eyes still glued to Fisher’s face.

Fisher stared back at Hassan. What is it?

What do you mean? Hassan asked

That look in your eye; it’s different, hard, pained…too many words come to mind to describe it, and not only kind, friendly words. I’ve only seen that look on a few faces. None of those faces lived very long, because they were locked up and died, killed themselves or were killed…by me! That does not make your odds so good, my friend. I know you are headed to America and you think it is a premature paradise, but believe me, it is not all that. America is a great place if you have money, but hell on Earth if you are without! You have to heal that look before you go or it will kill you!

Hassan dropped his gaze and looked into his teacup.

Thank you for your concern. I will not forget your words and take them into my heart. Hassan gulped down the last sip of tea. He and Fisher both stood up and shook hands.

Fisher stared at Hassan for a moment or two and the spoke to him. You need to write letters and find all the pictures you can and whatever else you want to give your family and I will make sure they receive them. Fisher promised. The next day would begin what would prove to be one of the most moving and lethal challenges of Fisher Harrison’s life.

The Guney Express

The sun had only just risen solidly in the eastern sky when Fisher Harrison rose, in the morning. He quickly got up and dressed and gathered his things together to head off to the Train Station. He looked for Hassan everywhere, but he was no where to be found. Earlier in the morning, he had awakened and went over his orders and sent an encoded message to his seven counterparts whom he’d meet on the other side of the devil’s border.

Fisher had joined his group of lethal hit men without even having given his approval. It had been simple and only temporarily confusing. He had been duly informed by his organization that he’d either join or be retired, permanently, which was to be interpreted in any way he choose. Fisher Harrison knew what the words meant, and they had had no small impact on him. Fisher remembered his first day in training. The words he had heard that day were indelibly burned into his brain and were as fresh now today as they had been five years earlier…

We are not new. We’ve been here since before the beginning. Of course, we were not always an official entity of the United States Government, but we’ve always influenced how the people view things. Hell, do you really think a tax on tea was that taxing on the people? Yet, many of our ancestors went out and died for pennies because we made them think that way! Do you really think the Southern States wanted to leave the Union rather than give freedom to those who had been abused for centuries? Yet, they left the nation and died, brother killing brother, sister hating sister and millions were affected by it, because we brought division to get the job done and free the slaves.

Look at President Wilson. He came to office pledging to keep us out of war, but when he decided to take the plunge he came to us. He made us official and we made those who had protested in the streets against involvement in the war to end all wars turn and shout their praise to the men boarding ships and sailing into hell! We made the people believe we were secure, until Pearl Harbor went boom. We made Vietnam a war and then drove the people crazy with it when we got a President who tried to take us out of the loop. We have been there on every page in your daily paper, in every news broadcast, and in every classroom in America.

You are the few, chosen for your smarts, trained to lurk in the shadows and expendable, should you have a sudden case of conscience! Ladies and gentlemen, perception is everything and it don’t matter one damn bit who’s in the White House! We make them think what we want them to think. We force them to forget what we refuse to let them remember and remember, at times, what had not even actually happened…!

Fisher Harrison’s thought of those days of mind altering instruction until he was thrust back into reality and realized that he was sitting there in his hotel staring onto space and gawking out the window in a mental haze.

Harrison went outside and saw someone running at top speed down Ataturk Boulevard away from the Besh Yildiz Hotel. Fisher immediately thought it was Hassan, but he couldn’t be sure and flagged down a taxi which took him to the front entrance of the Ankara train station. He got out and walked up to the entrance. As he reached for the door he heard a blast erupt behind him. A small cloud rose up suddenly into the sky, and he saw charred pieces of paper floating in the air. The direction of the smoke told him immediately that the location of the blast had been in the area where he had been staying. He had that sudden urge to return to the bug-infested dump where he had spent the past month. Then he heard the words Guney Express! over the station intercom. He turned and walked into station and boarded the slow train to the East.

* * *

Downtown, where Fisher had spent the past month, there had been twenty-seven Kurdish men, women and children who had hopes of new lives in America, Ulus was caldron of death. Now, not only had the insects been exterminated in the infested hotel, but 26 hopeful Kurdish men, women and children lay dead in the ruins of the smoldering rubble that had been the Besh Yildiz Hotel.

* * *

Fisher Harrison scanned the compartments for the one that belonged to him. Behind him someone was watching Fisher from the compartment across the corridor.

Fisher sat in the bench seat and looked out the window.

The word ‘Express’ is truly a misnomer for this train, Fisher thought, but he liked it that way.

Now, crouched down and shrouded by a blanket in the back of an old Iraqi taxi that was taking him the meeting that had induced all his thoughts, he could still feel the slow, swaying movement and could still hear the rickety clacking sound of the train that eventually took him all the way to the Eastern border of Turkey in the rapid time of four days.

Fisher had not boarded the wrong train. In reality, he had chosen this train for a journey that gave him a tremendous look at the culture of Turkey, from the modern center of the country to the rustic and tough, weather-beaten Eastern portion. It would prepare him for a mission that would change his life forever. He knew in his soul that those who had just died back at the hotel were his new-found friends, but they were