An Unlikely Terrorist: A Novel

By Tom Garland

In downtown Dallas, former CIA Agent John Campbell is having a good day until he spots Lisa Capps. The last time he'd seen Lisa was fifteen years ago when they were saying good-bye, ending a two year relationship. Before John can get Lisa's attention, she jumps into a car and speeds away. Moments later a multitude of explosions turn downtown Dallas into complete chaos.

With nearly two hundred dead, John can't help but question the suspicious nature of Lisa Capps' sudden departure prior to the explosions. John's premature exodus from the CIA comes to an abrupt end.

John elicits the help of a man known inside the CIA as the Wizard. The Wizard can find anyone, anywhere. What he discovers about John's old girlfriend is shocking. Lisa no longer resides in the United States, but lives in Iraq with her husband Doctor Amon Zandipour. Their son Andalee, and his grandfather, were killed on Andalee's third birthday by stray bullets; Zandipour swears were fired by American soldiers. Zandipour, now consumed by hatred for America, is out for revenge.

John's search for Zandipour begins in Iraq, where he will find out the disturbing truth about Lisa Capps. Racing against time, John traces Zandipour to his extravagant home on Akdamar Island in Turkey. There John discovers what Zandipour's next target is. It's far more elaborate than Dallas. With time running out, and thousands of lives at stake, can John stop Zandipour before it's too late?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499054651

Tom Garland

Tom lives in Arlington, Texas. His next book: AWAKEN will soon be available in paperback and e-book.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Since the murder of his wife John Campbell had separated himself from everyone and everything that once defined his existence. Not a day passed that he did not think of his beloved Kara. Since her death John had chosen the path of solitude. When he left the CIA, he did so without fanfare, or farewells. A simple hand written note to the director of his resignation had been mailed without a return address. No explanation was needed. John faded into obscurity. He’d check on his parents in Illinois once a month, either a quick surprise visit or a hurried telephone conversation. He’d spoken to his brother one time since Kara’s murder two years earlier.

John had never been accused of being an optimist; yet he excelled in everything he didn’t think he could do. John was that way. His degree was criminal law with a minor in creative writing. Neither path overly excited him. So when a recruiter with the Central Intelligence Agency approached him just before graduation he accepted their offer without hesitation. Relieved he didn’t have to pound the pavement looking for a job.

John barely broke a sweat going through the CIA’s rigorous training program. He excelled in the elite surreptitious training; in which a privilege few were handpicked. John Campbell quickly became their go to man. In the field he proved to be one of the agencies most prolific operations officers. For ten years John had put his life on the line for his country without a second thought. He had done amazing things for his country that he could never tell anyone about, not even his wife. Kara would have never been able to handle knowing that side of her husband.

But that was then.

The last two years since Kara’s murder John Campbell buried himself in his new work. Actually the first year he had simply buried himself. He’d spend his time writing sappy poetry about his dead wife. He had a pile of short stories, all first drafts with no motivation to perfect any of them. Then one afternoon while having lunch at an outdoor café in the West End near downtown Dallas, he overheard a table of women complaining about the men in their lives. It was all the motivation he needed. He got the crazy idea to write an advice column for men on how to treat women. John sent the idea to a number of newspapers. The Fort Worth Star Telegram was the only paper to respond to his idea. A month later John received calls from four other papers wanting to print his column. A year later close to a hundred papers printed his weekly column. He became somewhat of a cult hero among women. John used the pseudonym Mr. K, in memory of his wife, as his pen name.

John had grown up in Quincy, Illinois in the heart of Midwest America. The son of farmers, John had always loved the outdoors and never shied away from hard work. After Kara’s murder his parents tried talking him into moving back. But John had loved Dallas during his college years at SMU and the decision to make Dallas his home was an easy one. Dallas was large enough to get lost in, yet not so crowded to feel smothered. The Uptown area, near the A/A center where the Mavericks played basketball, a relatively new developed area of Dallas, was littered with high rise condos, restaurants and clubs. Downtown was within walking distance. John made his residence on the fortieth floor of Plaza D. The only thing above him was the roof, which had been turned into a park, complete with trees, grass and running path. Plaza D had everything a single man could possibly desire. Weeks would pass without John ever leaving the building. This particular morning he decided to take his laptop and walk downtown for coffee and a bagel at a little café he enjoyed called Jenny’s.

The day was November Ninth and in this part of Texas the weather was near perfect. Seventy degrees, crystal blue sky and a light northern breeze. On days like this he wished Jenny’s had outdoor seating. He ordered his usual house blend java, black, with a cinnamon raisin bagel slathered thick with cream cheese. The time was 9:45 a.m. and most worker bees were on the job. He had the café mostly to himself for the next couple hours. Enough time to finish his column. With his laptop open, his coffee to the side and a mouth full of bagel and cream cheese John typed his advice for the week, Kara always his inspiration. It was easy writing what he’d do for her and say to her had she been alive. John sat at a table towards the back, yet with a perfect view of Commerce Street through Jenny’s huge picture window. He watched as men and woman strolled hurriedly in their dark suits, cell phones plastered to their ears and swaying leather briefcases keeping rhythm with their gait. He was thankful not to be a part of the rat race. John typed a sentence, and then raised his coffee cup to his lips. His mindless gaze drifted through Jenny’s windowpane. What he saw froze him in place and sent his brain wheeling back in time fifteen plus years.

Elizabeth Capps stood on the other side of Commerce Street waving down a cab. It was like seeing the dead come to life. For a second he was unable to move before pure instinct jolted him from his chair and racing for the door. He yanked opened the heavy wooden door with frosted glass and yelled over the Commerce Street traffic.

Lisa!

With four lanes of traffic between them and the hum of the city whining loudly, she could not hear him. She looked anxious, maybe even scared. Not the confident, borderline arrogant, Lisa Capps he had once known. A car, not a cab, came to a screeching halt in front of her. The back door flew open. Elizabeth jumped, nearly leaped into the car. John gave up trying to get her attention when the black Mercedes with heavily tinted windows, accelerated around the corner and was gone.

Seeing Elizabeth Capps for the first time in – God has it been sixteen years - had literally sucked the air from his lungs. Elizabeth, or Lisa, was the girl all others had been measured by, even his beloved Kara. Although after the second date Kara became the new measuring stick. Of course after Kara a measuring stick was no longer necessary. No one would ever measure up to Kara.

For a few moments John stared in the direction the Mercedes had sped away before turning back to Jenny’s. Last time he laid eyes on Lisa Capps, he was twenty years old. She had broken up with him and left his heart in pieces. She had barely crossed his mind in the last ten years.

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John was in the motion of opening Jenny’s heavy wooden door when the first explosion nearly knocked him off his feet. The door’s thick frosted glass moaned and popped, but held fast. Before John’s mind could wrap around and process the first explosion a second, third, and forth, possibly fifth explosion came with the flurry of scud missiles. John held firm to the door handle. His head slammed into the heavy frosted glass just before he fell to the pavement.

After a moment of disorientation, using the door handle he pulled himself up. A sea of horrified humanity raced towards him and then passed him. Some screamed, many were bleeding, others cried as though the world was coming to an end. The shock from what was happening removed them from reality. Car alarms welled and horns blared. Traffic quickly jammed on Commerce, as many abandoned their vehicles. The sky above grew dark from the heavy smoke caused by the explosions. John was opening the door when three more explosions rocked the ground beneath him. The few people inside Jenny’s were huddled behind the counter screaming hysterically. Jenny stared at John, wide eyed, in a state of shock. Her customers, though scared out of their minds, appeared to be unharmed. Jenny’s massive picture window had imploded, glass was everywhere.

Come on! John yelled, motioning them to the door. It’s not safe here. Hurry!

Everyone but Jenny followed his order.

You, too, Jenny, come on.

I can’t leave my store. She pointed to the broken window. And then as if nothing else mattered she said, John, you’re bleeding. Jenny took the towel tucked inside her apron and started to wipe John’s face. John took the towel from her catching a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror behind the coffee bar. The right side of his face was covered in blood where his head had collided with the door glass.

It’s too dangerous, Jenny, you’ve got to go.

I can’t leave, this is all I have.

Jenny, it’s not an option, you have to go.

She could tell by the look in John’s eyes that he probably had a better idea of what was going on than most.

I at least need to empty the cash drawer.

Hurry up then! John shouted, fearing more explosions might be forthcoming.

Jenny took one last look at the business she had saved years for. It had been her dream to have a place where people could come and gather for a brief and peaceful escape from their hectic lives. She had placed a small sign at the top of the door the first day she had opened for business. It read: Before entering all your cares and worries must be left outside. If you’re lucky they might all be gone by the time you leave. Now as she exited the business she had opened four years earlier the uneasy feeling that she might never see it again flooded her with sadness.

It’ll be okay, John said. What’s lost here can be replaced. Human life cannot be replaced, now go.

Jenny paused at the door. What’s happening, John?

John just shook his head and nudged her on.

Aren’t you coming? Jenny said.

I’ll be right behind you.

He watched for a second as Jenny disappeared into the mass of humanity.

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Commerce Street ran East and West. East was in the thick of downtown and where the explosions had taken place. It was hard to see anything over the throngs of people racing his way.

Risking the possibility of being trampled to death, John made the fifteen foot journey across the sidewalk to the street. There he climbed on top a cream colored BMW parked curbside. It’s alarm blaring. When he first heard the explosion he thought of 9/11. What he saw now left no doubt. Cars sat dead in the middle of the road, some smashed by the heavy falling glass from towering skyscrapers, enormous plates of glass an inch thick and weighing a ton. People abandoned their cars, fleeing in unison from the dark force that turned their beautiful day into death and terror. Sirens blared from all directions blending with the screams and cries. John heard a helicopter circling somewhere above the gray cloud of smoke and thought that to be unwise.

Following his instincts, John began moving towards the chaos that had disrupted so many lives this day. It had always been John’s habit to go against the grain. Today was no different. As everyone ran from the chaos, John ran toward it. It then hit him what lay ahead: The Federal Building. Any doubt of this being a terrorist attack instantly vanished.

He had to use the cars lining Commerce to avoid the rush of the crowd. He had no idea so many people inhabited downtown during the day. Each one of the towering skyscrapers could easily hold the population of many small mid-western towns.

What was he doing? What could he do? The closer he got to the Federal Building the more dead he saw lying still in the street and on the sidewalks. Some, were burnt beyond recognition, others had been severely cut by flying glass. And yet some appeared to have been trampled to death by others trying to save their own lives. He proceeded east. Everyone else moved west.

John stopped in front of the pinkish granite Federal Building. Its thick walls were unmoved by the explosion. The upper floors, not being heavy granite showed severe exterior damage. The upper west side of the building looked as though Godzilla had taken a huge bite out of the top four floors. Fire blazed through most of the east side windows where the building’s structure was still intact.

The tallest building in downtown, a seventy-four story glass structure sat across the street. A massive bright red iron sculpture of somebody’s twisted imagination sat on the concrete out front. One of the enormous glass panels had fallen squarely onto the sculpture sending shards of deadly inch thick glass splintering in all directions, like heavy stones rocketing through the air. Another panel had flattened a few cars in the middle of the road before shattering. John was mesmerized by what he saw. This was 9/11 all over again. He then realized it was 11/9. Terrorists with a sick sense of humor, he thought.

John Campbell clinched his fist.

It was time to go back to work.

Chapter 2

In all his years with the CIA John could not recall witnessing such devastation. He was in Taegu, South Korea tracking two high ranking military personnel in the act of treason on September eleven when the United States vulnerability was exposed. The news escalated his mission. John’s actions were quick and decisive. Within minutes he had in his possession what he came for. The duplicity of the traders would never be known, nor would their bodies ever be found.

John had been off the job for two years, yet his mind churned as though he’d never left. Men and women were still exiting some of the larger buildings. Their faces filled with horror as they ran from a monster they could not see. Up a head John spotted a DART bus, Dallas Area Rapid Transit, public transportation that largely went unused. The white and yellow bus sat at an angle in the middle of Commerce. Flames curled through the engines ventilation cover at the tail end of the bus where a delivery truck had rammed it. Directly in front of the bus sat an abandoned taxicab. Judging by the trajectory of the cab, and its mangled side panel, the buses impact had sent it spinning. Fire dripped from the taxi’s engine like a leaky faucet. John knew it was just a matter of time before the bus and the taxi exploded. An ill attempt to steer the shocked stampeding masses away from the burning vehicles was pointless.

And then from somewhere in the crowd he heard:

Somebody’s in the bus!

John turned and spotted a terrified woman trapped in the DART bus pounding hysterically on the windshield. Her screams were muffled by the madness, and the bus’s thick windshield. The terror in her eyes told the story of what was happening in downtown Dallas. The muscles in her face grew tight with panic. Dodging the rush of frightened humanity, John hurried to the bus. Flames spewing from the bus’s engine grew evermore threatening. John tried to get her to open the door. She stood petrified next to the lever that would swing the door open with a simple tug. But she just stared at him as if eternity separated them. She glanced to the rear of the bus where the flames had seep through a broken window. Her entire body contorted into a tight knot as she screamed. Her eyes pleading with fear. And the knowledge she was about to die. John wasted no more time trying to reason with her. He rushed to the green cab, flung open the driver’s door with no thought for his own safety and yanked on the trunk lever. The trunk sprang open. John found the iron lug wrench and hurried back to the bus.

Back up! I’m going to bust the glass! He yelled to the woman inside.

He tapped the windshield to test its strength.

Duck behind a seat and cover your eyes!

She surprised him by doing just that. The first hit cracked the window. The second shattered it, and the third caused it to crumble. Using the lug wrench, John cleared the glass from the edge. He then mounted the chrome bumper and climbed into the bus. The woman was still hiding behind the seat sobbing uncontrollably. She let out a sharp shriek at John’s touch. He lifted her from the floor, opened the bus door and carried her off.

Once he felt they were a safe distance from the bus John put her down.

Can you make it from here? John asked.

With a quick hug and thank you she turned and headed west, blending in with the fleeing crowd.

John turned back in the direction of the bus. Most of the people that were going to clear out had. Some people just refuse to leave. It happens all the time in disaster situations. There’s always a hand full who think they can beat the odds.

On a normal day downtown Dallas is gloomy. The skyscrapers shadow most of the sun. Add chaos, and the gloom intensifies tenfold. John glanced back at the bus; the entire rear end was engulfed in flames. He spotted a man sitting on the curb not far from the bus.

Hey, you need to move! John hollered over the roar of approaching sirens. The man looked up in a daze. That bus, John pointed to the burning bus. Is about to explode. The man, in business attire, just stared at him. John yanked him to his feet and shook him. Pull it together, buddy. The man didn’t respond so John smacked him hard on the side of his face. It worked and the man took off without a word.

Like a seasoned CIA veteran Campbell surveyed the area. There was no sign that a kamikaze pilot had nose dived into the Federal building. He didn’t see a suspicious truck parked nearby that had been blown to smithereens. John wondered if perhaps he had jumped to conclusions by assuming this was an act of terrorism. Could a gas leak have caused this kind of mass destruction?

A frantic voice drifted down from above. John looked around and finally found the excited voice. A man, in a suit was standing on the sixth floor of the building across the street. His office exposed, thanks to the explosion. He was waving with both arms at John.

John started moving in his direction.

No, no! The man yelled, his arms crisscrossing and then pointing to the Federal Building across the street.

John turned and saw the object of the man’s excitement. A woman on the fifth floor, corner office, looked like she might be weighing her odds of surviving the fire as opposed to jumping five stories. John yelled for her to stay put, and without thought dashed into the burning building through the copious entrance where glass double doors used to be.

Gray smoke filled the marble lobby. The sprinklers rained water from the ceiling. Florescent lights flickered off and on. John tripped over something, and bent over to check it out. It was a dead security guard. He glanced around and spotted three other bodies. A quick check confirmed his fears. They were all dead.

He found the stairwell and ran up four flights of stairs as though running from gunfire. The doorknob on the fifth floor was hot. He spat on his hands and tried again. The doorknob would not budge. A fire extinguisher hung next to the door, John ripped it from the wall and hammered the door with it. The door sprung open and thick black smoke, like a mighty wave, swallowed him instantly. Hot flames hissed around him like preying snakes. John ripped off his shirt and held it over his face.

With fire extinguisher in hand, John started down the hall knowing he had precious little time. Fortunately the stairwell was in the middle of the floor so he didn’t have far to go.

Inside the office he spotted the woman, still at the window sucking outside air. John couldn’t say anything for fear of asphyxiation. Desperate for air himself, he rushed to the window and breathed in the polluted outside air. He knew he’d have to hold his breath until they reached the outdoors. John covered the woman’s face with his shirt and instructed her to hold her breath.

In the hallway flames now crawled up the walls and along the ceiling creating a tunnel of fire. The walls cracked and moaned, sounding like an enormous campfire. John sprayed the walls with the extinguisher. It had no affect on the fire. He counted three dead bodies lying in the hallway. A man in a business suit laid face down, the lower half of his body still in his office. John couldn’t help but wonder how many others hadn’t made it.

By the time they reached the stairwell the woman was unconscious. John hoisted her over his shoulder and raced down four flights of stairs. Smoke grew thicker with his descent. The last flight he took blindly. He held to the woman with his right arm as the stairwell railing guided him with his left hand. John burst into the lobby desperate for air. He risked opening his eyes, it burnt like hell, but he spotted the entrance and ran for it.

The man from across the street who had pointed the trapped woman out to him was waiting on the sidewalk and ran to John as he dashed from the smoky building. They exchanged looks that would last a lifetime. John handed him the woman. He took a deep breath before racing back into the burning building.

What the hell you doing? the man yelled after him.

A few minutes passed and John appeared from the smoke dragging a man and a woman. Their arms draped over his shoulders. He laid them on the sidewalk and back in he went, exhausted and struggling to breathe. Images of his beloved Kara danced happily in his head. How many more lives could he save before his own life was beyond saving? When John first entered the building he heard a collective cry for help. It wasn’t until he exited the stairwell with the woman over his shoulder did he realize the cries were coming from the elevator. By the time he got the elevator doors prided open half the people inside were already dead from asphyxiation. Now, with flames blazing all around him he stepped into the elevator rummaging through the dead for the living. He found a young woman smothering beneath a large man. John pulled the dead man off her and lifted her into his arms. Just then the elevator made a shrieking metal to metal sound and dropped five feet before coming to a jerking halt. He quickly lifted the girl out imploring her to run. She didn’t move, but gazed down at John in the elevator. Her eyes pleading: what about you.

Go! John yelled. And she disappeared in the smoke.

He searched the remaining bodies. They were all dead. Just then the shaft dropped a couple more feet. John jumped, his finger tips finding the edge of the shaft. The slotted metal elevator track was hot to the touch. His strength was depleted, he couldn’t pull himself out. He wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.

From his dangling perspective he watched flames waving across the ceiling. The sprinklers were now dry, thick smoke swirled in a velvet fog. Lights no longer flickered. And then to make matters worse the elevator fell another ten feet. His time was quickly running out.

A crystal clear image of Kara’s angelic beauty filled John’s mind. He was about to be reunited with her. Then just like that the image of his deceased wife was replaced by two Dallas firefighters with heavy oxygen mask covering their faces. Together they snatched John Campbell from death’s embrace.

He felt the mask placed over his face and sweet clean air attack his struggling lungs. Once outside the firefighters lowered him to the pavement. John sensed consciousness drifting away. And then as if a defibrillator had been applied to his chest, John’s eyes popped open as another sinuous explosion rocked downtown Dallas.

Chapter 3

The remainder of November ninth had passed without John Campbell aware that it had. He had swallowed enough smoke to give the entire population of a small country lung cancer. He was lucky to be alive. John opened his eyes for the first time in twenty-four hours to see the flicker of florescent light shining down on him. The incessant hum of current sparking through the ballast buzzed in his head like a swarm of flies. He could tell by the smell alone that he was in a hospital room. He knew the tube in his mouth supplied oxygen to his lungs. He glanced to the left and saw the IV needle embedded into the protruding vein on the back of his hand and understood its purpose. Sadness rushed through John as the memory of Kara lying in a hospital bed dying from a fatal gunshot flooded his senses. All he could do was hold her until she was gone. He closed his eyes and the image changed to the masked firefighters pulling him from the elevator shaft, and the men and women lying dead on the elevator floor. He then remembered the thunderous explosion just before he past out. He opened his eyes glancing around the private room for a wall clock and didn’t find one. He lifted his left arm with the IV but the Seiko watch his wife had given him on their first anniversary was not there. It was a piece of Kara he wore everyday. His most prized possession. The fact that it wasn’t on his wrist sickened him. John found the bed’s remote and raised himself to a ninety degree angle so he could better appraise his surroundings.

A nurse dressed in a baby blue outfit resembling pajamas, entered the room just as he was about to remove the tube from his mouth.

No you don’t! She demanded.

John smiled at her with his deep brown eyes and removed it anyway. He coughed a few times. It hurt like hell. The nurse was now standing over him.

I’m sorry, what did you say? John asked innocently. His throat raw, from all the smoke he had inhaled.

She gave him a sideways glance and asked. How are you feeling?

What time is it? he asked, ignoring her question.

She checked her watch. Eleven twenty.

John started to get up and she put a heavy hand on his chest. You’re not going anywhere.

John figured the nurse to be all of five feet two inches, weight proportionate. Her dark hair pulled tight into a bun on top her head. Her eyes sparkled with firm gentle kindness. He decided to obey her, for now.

Can you at least remove this IV and get me something to drink?

A pitcher of water sat on the swing out table and she poured him a glass.

How about some food?

I’ll see what I can do, but you have to promise me that you’ll stay put. She felt his head with the back of her hand and seemed satisfied. Before leaving she turned back to him and said. You are a very brave man.

Soon as the nurse disappeared John swung his legs off the bed and yanked out the IV, just now realizing he was dressed in a hospital gown. John scanned the room for his clothes but didn’t see them. The room started to spin and he had no choice but to lay back down. It was the same kind of spin that came from drinking way too much. He hadn’t done that in awhile. Just as he closed his eyes, John heard a quick triple tap on the heavy hospital door, and then a voice from his past say:

John.

Campbell snapped to attention at the sound of Walter Philpot’s scratchy authoritative voice. A voice he hadn’t heard in quite some time. Walter Philpot had been his immediate supervisor when he was with the CIA. They had actually been pretty close. Walter had saved his ass on many occasions when John had crossed the line, which he had a tendency to do. It had been Philpot who had helped John fade into anonymity after his wife’s brutal murder. It was Walter Philpot who turned a blind eye when John sought revenge on his wife’s killers, one by one until all four men responsible were dead. It was Walter Philpot who had warned him that one of the four men John had killed was the son of an obscure Middle Eastern prince. And it was Philpot who had warned him during their last phone conversation that by killing the son of this ruthless prince that John had signed his own death warrant.

You’re getting careless, John. And after all I did to help you fade into obscurity. Philpot smiled and slapped a folded newspaper on John’s chest. So much for anonymity, you’re losing your touch.

John looked at Walter without saying a word and unfolded the newspaper. Big bold letters atop the front page read: Hundreds believed dead after terrorist attack in downtown Dallas. President Holmes promises swift retaliation. Then just below the headlines and just above a photo of John carrying two people from the burning Federal Building read: A hero stands out in the face of terror.

"You’re a hero, John. The same photo is on the front page of USA Today and I imagine newspapers all across the country, the internet, not to mention every newscast in the free world. The only reason reporters aren’t here taking pictures and asking questions is because of the security I brought with me. You know how these things work, John. Everybody wants a piece of you. The President will more than likely want to honor you. What you did was very brave, but also made you very public, thus destroying your