The Burning Bush

By Daniel West

Danny is a true patriot, he believes in his country, he is too old to join the military after 9/11, so he joins Blackwater instead so he can help support the US troops.
He deploys with the invasion forces and drives a fuel tanker truck while that force takes Baghdad.
He becomes disillusioned when he learns the true reason that the US government invaded Iraq.
After driving a supply truck and being continually ambushed and attacked for almost a year, he loses faith in his belief that the US is actually helping the people of Iraq.
When Danny is taken hostage by one of the insurgent groups, no one tries to rescue him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781329054783

Book preview

The Burning Bush

The Burning Bush

Daniel West

The Burning Bush - Is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Places and events have been created for effect

© Copyright 2015: Daniel West and Gestalt Epiphany, Ltd

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States.

Daniel West Author

Library of Congress Control Number

TXu 1-963-120

ISBN 13 - 978-1-329-05478-3

9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

First Edition

(Unedited Version)

Other Books by the Author

Dancing in Hell

A Guide to Surviving Your Spouse’s Mid-Life Crisis

Czech Mate

Psychological Thriller

Acapulco Gold

Psychological Thriller

The Charleston Shuffle

Crime Thriller

The Spider and the Fly

Crime Thriller

DreamScape

Psychological Thriller

Scarlet Epiphany

An Interactive Homicide Investigation

The Burning Bush

An Epic Fantasy/Anti-War/Satire

Swan Song

Satire

Acknowledgments

I thank my son and coauthor, Daniel West Jr. for standing by me all these years and helping produce this book

I owe all of my success to you.

- Daniel Sr.

To all of the people who left the comfort of their home to explore the vast unknown… and to all of the women who drove them to do it.

The Burning Bush

Dedication _

Prelude to Destruction_

Nine One One_

Eighteen Months to Incite a War_

War Pigs_

Mission Accomplished! _

The Highway to Hell_

The Blood of the Lamb_

Étude in Black _

The Dead Cat Bounce_

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath_

The Darkness that Binds U.S._

Do Unto Others_

Epilog_

About the Author _

Dedication

The End of the Innocence – Don Henley

This book is dedicated to the 5,281+ Americans who lost their lives in the Iraq /Afghanistan War

This book is also dedicated to the approximately 200,000 Iraqis who lost their lives because of a lie that was told in a distant land

This book would also like to Honor

Muntadhar al-Zaidi

The one man who was willing to risk his life, freedom, home, family… and a perfectly good pair of shoes. In order to take a stand against a Tyrant.

Being Nonviolent, I commend your choice of weapons, sir

The Burning Bush

Daniel West

Prelude to Destruction

Lightning arced across the sky; it momentarily illuminated the army slogging through the mud below.

Borgoc looked upwards nervously, marching around wearing metal armor, and holding a metal spear, in the middle of a thunderstorm was not wise.

He turned and looked at the Iron Cross, battering ram that a group of men were carrying. He shuddered as he thought, carrying that thing would make a man a lightning magnet.

Raêtíêñbø sat astride his pale horse, he looked down upon the men slogging through the mud, he shouted, Do not let the lightning give you cause to fear or allow you to become disheartened. The great Prophet Cheney has spoken to the Holy Bush, That Bush has already foretold of our great victory in this venture! He held a single fist high above his head, and shouted, Our victory is assured!

The soldiers held a single fist high in the air and screamed in response.

Borgoc lowered his head to shield his face from the driving rain as he continued to slog through the mud.

Borgoc’s hair suddenly stood on end and he heard a loud crack off to his right. He paused to see what happened, a whole unit of infantry lay scorched on the muddy ground. Borgoc shuddered and resumed the pace, he did not care to feel a whip against his back.

Raêtíêñbø screamed at the men as the whips started to fall on the slower men, "Don’t just stand and watch, move you slugs. We must advance using this storm as a shield, our enemy will never expect our early arrival. Surprise is victory!"

Borgoc shook his head in pity for those who moved too slowly, those whips were a merciless master.

Liogib, spoke softly to Borgoc, Our enemy already knows that we are marching. I have seen their scouts on the horizon. There will be no surprise attack.

The enemy may have spotted us, but the people will welcome us as liberators. The people of Mesop hate their leaders.

Liogib laughed, If you say so.

You do not believe the people hate their leaders? That is heresy. The Sacred Bush has told us that the people will welcome us with open arms.

Liogib snorted, As much as the people despise their leaders, they hate us even more. The only open arms you will see are the open arms of the men who have already thrown their spears at us.

Borgoc scowled at Liogib, If you do not believe in our divine purpose. Why are you here?

Because I had no choice. My family needs money to survive, and this was the only job available to me. I do what I must, for my family.

Borgoc nodded, Times are hard because of the Mesops.

It is not because of the Mesops. Times are hard because of our leaders. Our leaders created our hardships, so they could turn our anger against their enemies.

Borgoc turned his face away from Liogib, You are a traitor to our own people.

I am not a traitor. I simply see the truth. Our government claims to love peace, yet we have NEVER, in the history of our country, been at peace. We have always been fighting someone.

We have many enemies, both internal and external.

We have many enemies, because we create those enemies. When we lose one enemy, we go looking for two more. Our government uses those enemies to divert our anger away from their actions.

Borgoc looked toward the muddy ground, Save your treasonous talk for someone else. I do not care to hear any more of it.

***

High Lord Torvos met with the Elven Council in the Oaken Chamber, My scouts have informed me that the Trogs that were massing along our border have used the storm to advance into our territory. They should arrive at this stronghold within three days.

Lord Pirenor spoke, The Trogs are as numerous as the locusts, they have at least five times our number. How do you suggest that we repel them?

Torvos smiled, Our attackers have made many mistakes since they have invaded our land. They have failed to secure our borders, our neighbors will come to our aid… given time. We do not need to defeat the Trogs, we simply need to slow them down.

Slow them down?

Guerilla tactics and ambushes. Hit fast and run even faster. Make them start to look under every rock and behind every tree along their path. Force them to slow themselves down.

Nine One One

The old man nursed his beer as he sat at the bar, he watched, once again, as the plane crashed into the side of the world trade center. He wasn’t sure how many times he had watched this same event today. This was at least the eighth or ninth time he had viewed it. But with each viewing came a new sense of clarity.

The old man had spent most of his life working in the Intelligence community. He started out in the trade as a young man during world war two. He had been with naval intelligence trying to determine what the Japanese were up to in the South Pacific.

After the war, he had gone to work at Langley. Doing intelligence and counter intelligence work is a dirty business. There are so many ways to mislead your opposition, and the public. If he hadn’t seen every trick in the book, he had seen most of them. But this one, this one was special.

The old man had been gathering loose tidbits of information. No plan that included other people was perfect, nor was it perfectly secret. Small details of information got released. If an intelligent person collected enough of those loose details, that person could arrange those pieces of the puzzle and see the entirety of the picture.

The Kennedy assassination had taught him that lesson. Everyone knew who killed President Kennedy, but very people few knew exactly why Oswald had killed him.

The old man sat back and laughed, someone had photo-shopped a section of the airplane footage. But who? And why? It was obvious that the tower had been struck by an airplane, so why would someone go to the trouble to photo-shop an image?

Did someone need to remove a key piece of key evidence, or did that person need to show the world a graphic image? An image that was sure to enrage the public.

The old man laughed softly as he leaned back against his bar stool. He smiled smugly as he thought, it was, without a doubt, the latter of the two. The world needed to see this graphic image, because someone wanted a war.

***

The young man sat in a corner dining booth at ‘The Greasy Spoon Truck Stop’, he watched on the TV as the second plane impacted the tower.

Thinking as an engineer, he noted that the plane did not strike the tower head on. Just before impact the pilot had tipped the wings at an angle in order for the fuel inside the wings to spread into at least four of the floors. This was important. If the plane had struck only one of the floors, most of the fuel and debris would have just blown out the other side of the building.

By involving those other floors, the fuel remained contained inside the impacted area, causing the steel columns to melt and collapse.

The young man nodded to himself, someone had put a lot of money and research into this attack. But why choose that particular target? The world trade center was not a military, or government, target.

People would initially be afraid, but their fear would soon turn into anger. The US was simply too powerful for its people to stay in fear. The citizens would soon be demanding blood. Someone either wanted a war with the US, or they were about to be surprised by the extremely disproportionate response that this attack would bring.

The young man would not be the least bit surprised if in the very near future, an entire country ceased to exist.

A waitress approached the young man’s booth, What will you be having today?

The young man checked her name tag, Well, Margie, I’ll take the ‘Death by Cholesterol’ burger and a side order of the greasy fries. He paused, Top that off with the fried apple pie.

Margie nodded, What would you like to drink?

The young man frowned, "I was going to order a sweet tea, but with all of that grease, you probably need to just bring me a glass of Drano."

Margie laughed, Would you like a slice of lemon with your Drano.

The young man laughed, Why the hell not? Ya might as well go first class when you poison yourself.

The young man watched Margie’s ass as she walked away. He shook his head, pretty, but she was too young for him. He shrugged as he thought, oh well, and went back to watching the news coverage of the attack.

***

Sheikh Dagh sat in his office, at Cambridge University, he watched the drama that was being played out on his television screen. He shook his head in disgust as he thought, some country is about to catch hell, and my country is the favorite whipping boy of the Bush administration.

He shrugged, maybe I will get the chance to finish out the rest of this semester before they attack my people.

Sheikh Dagh liked to teach, and Humanities was his favorite subject.

He tossed his study briefs into his top desk drawer, England had been a very good home to him. When he had first attended this University, the other students had nicknamed him ‘Shock Dog’. He laughed at how quickly he had turned that moniker into a title of respect.

He frowned, if war came to his country, his father would need him at home. Iraq was a country with a very tribal culture, and his father was the tribal leader of his people. The son’s presence would be expected by every member of the tribe.

He cursed silently in anger, "Why is my country the favorite target of the Bush administration? Certainly Iran, or North Korea, is far more of a threat to world peace.

He nodded knowingly, my country is weak, and the weak animal is almost always the lion’s next meal.

He wasn’t looking forward to leaving his new home, but it would be pleasant to have a chance to return to his family. He walked out of his office waiting for the other shoe to drop.

***

Vice President Cheney entered the Oval office, Mr. President, for better or worse, it’s done.

Baby Bush looked up from his papers, None of this can be traced back to us, can it?

Cheney mentally deliberated, We were very careful with our plans. I wish you hadn’t used bin Laden, but done is done.

"I had to use bin Laden. His family, and my family, go back a long time. Papa Bush personally recruited bin Laden for CIA training in our war in Afghanistan against the Russians. I needed to use someone I could trust in order to get the job done."

Therein lies the danger. It’s too easy for anyone to be able to connect your family to the bin Laden family.

Baby Bush nodded, So what’s our next move?

We wait for the public to demand blood, then we point the blame toward bin Laden and Afghanistan.

Not Iraq? Saddam is a slap in the face to my precious daddy Bush. I thought we were gonna go after Saddam.

Cheney shook his head, We couldn’t frame Saddam for the job. Afghanistan is a very good target. It will tie up our military for years to come and my company will make trillions of dollars providing the government with mercenaries.

What about bin Laden? If we kill him, his family will never forgive me.

Cheney laughed, "A dead wolf is not a threat to the sheep. We need to keep bin Laden alive and well in order to keep the people in fear of him.

"If we do happen to catch bin Laden, we will simply give him a new name and relocate him. Cheney grinned wickedly, I think Memphis would be the ideal location to hide him. That way, people can start reporting that they saw Elvis and bin Laden eating donuts together at a Dunkin Doughnuts."

Baby Bush laughed, "You crack me up. I knew there was some reason I picked you to be my Vice President."

***

Borgoc had a hard time believing the story he was being told, the tale was just so farfetched. A messenger arrived from the capitol. The messenger was telling the people of his village that The Sunseekers had managed to set off a Scortchwave in the holy temple.

That attack killed more than two hundred of the high priests, and had nearly incinerated the sacred Bush. Fortunately, the sacred Bush had not been inside the temple that day.

Borgoc interrupted the messenger, You said that you captured nineteen of the attackers. Of those nineteen, fifteen were Samidians, four were from countries neighboring Samidia. Not a single one of those attackers was a Sunseeker.

Yes, what of it?

"I’m just curious as to why, if the Sunseekers are behind this outrage, why wasn’t any of the attackers a Sunseeker?"

The messenger looked perturbed, "Obviously the Sunseekers are smarter than you are. They hired those other attackers as a ploy. They wouldn’t dare use any of their own people in the attack."

Borgoc nodded, If the Sunseekers are so damn smart, they would realize that we would blame them for this attack anyway, and they could just go ahead and use their own people to help maintain the secrecy of their diabolical plan.

The messenger turned away from Borgoc and continued to work up the crowd, There is no reasoning with a fool.

Borgoc laughed as he thought, I got him. He just doesn’t have an honest answer.

The messenger worked the crowd into a frenzy, then announced, "The sacred Bush had decreed that all able bodied men are hereby conscripted into the army. We are going to attack the Sunseekers, in force, and annihilate them."

Once again, Borgoc interrupted the messenger, What if I don’t want to join the army?

You don’t have a choice in the matter. If you refuse to join the army, we will simply execute you right here as a traitor.

Borgoc glared at the messenger, "If you’re going to kill me if I don’t join, then obviously I will be dead and I won’t be in your army. So… why can’t you just leave me here, alive, in order to let me to protect the women and children of this village?"

The messenger became outraged, That would set a bad precedent. Any man refusing to join the army, will be executed… immediately!

Borgoc nodded, If those are my only choices, then I guess I’m going to have to join the army. I’ll go say my goodbyes to my wife and children, then we will go.

The messenger pointed at Borgoc, "You will not! You will fall into line immediately and start marching! Your wife and children will figure out that you are leaving, when they watch you march off with the rest of the men! What do you think of that Mr. Smartass?"

I think it sucks.

Welcome to the army, being in the army sucks.

Borgoc casually flipped a rude gesture at the messenger as he stepped into the line of new recruits.

Liogib smiled pleasantly at Borgoc as he fell into line beside him, That messenger may have won the argument, but you made him work for it. There’s no shame in your loss. Your opponent had the full force of the government behind him.

Borgoc nodded as he took one last glance back toward the village. He hoped that he would get one last glimpse of his wife to remember her by. He shook his head, no such luck.

Eighteen Months to Incite a War

Cheney entered the Oval office, "We’ve finally got you your war. We had the CIA leak fraudulent documents to the media and our chicken hawks in the Senate. We changed the playing field and painted anyone opposing this war as being anti-American.

Baby Bush nodded, "I like what you did with the UN. Everyone in this country realizes how corrupt those bastards are