Naples, Florida, Covid-19 Terror Tale

By E.E Hunt

This book concerns an Iranian terror attack against the paradise city of Naples on the west coast of Florida to revenge the American-caused death of General Qassim Soleimani, Iran’s primary leader of violence at the time. Four vacationing Americans—two from New York City, a married couple: Ted Edmunds, an FBI agent, and his wife Sherry, NYC 19th Precinct lieutenant; and two friends from the American embassy in London: Steve Hallcroft and his Welsh fiancée and secretary, Bronwyn Esther Morgan—are invited to enjoy a vacation in Naples. But they are interrupted by the local sheriff’s office to help him stop terrorism, and they do so, with the complication of the horrid COVID-19 pandemic. They are soon head over heels in a tough assignment rather than a vacation, and it leaves its mark on them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984588371

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Copyright © 2020 by E. E. Hunt.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/18/2020

Xlibris

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I

dedicate this book to my two Stanford classmates,

Robert Lawrence and Peter Dahl, both ROTC

members and Theta Xi brothers, as well as to

granddaughters Caroline and Louisa Hunt, Episcopal

High School classmates in Alexandria, Virginia.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Paradise Visited

Chapter 2 Back in the Game

Chapter 3 The Search

Chapter 4 The Terror Instigators

Chapter 5 The Next Challenge

Chapter 6 The Persian Avengers

Chapter 7 Reflection and Resolve

Chapter 8 Dirty Viral Plotting

Chapter 9 Regrouping as Helpers

Chapter 10 Unhappy Terrorists

Chapter 11 At Home but Not at Rest

Chapter 12 Hope at Last

Chapter 13 Later at the Vacation Home

ONE

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PARADISE VISITED

Ted Edmunds, FBI agent from New York City, was so happy to be on vacation at last that he began a diary of his stay in Naples, Florida, and wrote down much of the beginning of his time there in his little book, recording much of it each day. He and his wife, Sherry, Nineteenth Precinct police lieutenant, were now very relaxed after a traumatic time fighting against cruel terrorists in New York City. His first written words were thus,

I saw an anhinga bird near water in a guarded posh home in the community where I temporarily lived in Naples, Florida, totally immerse itself in a green-mold-topped pond while hunting fish. And then after, it strutted to the surface again, having eaten its little prey, and began to stand still with its wings wide open in order to dry them in the sun. An anhinga can easily swim a long time underwater because its wings are not coated, and as it becomes wet while underwater, together with its denser bones, the wet feathers allow the bird to easily submerge thus a long time while kicking its webfeet in search of its prey. However, an anhinga must therefore stand on ground in order to dry off its wings since they are not waterproof, unlike other similar-type birds, like the great egret. This bird is named after a South American native tribe and is sometimes called the snake bird because of its long neck. It’s an unusual sight on any water area because most birds have no need of drying their wings after hunting in the water, but that unusual bird reminded me of how many times I had been head over heels in deep water, so to speak, while hunting very bad criminals. Then I had to dry off also by becoming less tense, usually by downing a few drinks.

You see, I was visiting in Naples a cousin of mine from St. Louis who lived in this charming western side of Florida. From time to time he invited me to enjoy his Pelican Gulf–gated community where this rare snake bird was common. He was very generous, and before he was on an extended vacation in Europe, he merely said to me, The house is yours. But what a home it was—four bedrooms, three and a half baths, and a private swimming pool along with a recreation room for ping-pong and other indoor sports. We planned to stay in his minor mansion along with two of our own friends who were joining us.

My wife, who is a lieutenant in the Nineteenth Precinct in New York City, Sherry Edmunds—now that we are married, leaving Williams as her maiden name behind—accompanied me. We are really residents of Manhattan on a break because we had both been involved in hunting, not finding fish or frogs for dinner like that bird, but in what is now called neutralizing demon Muslim terrorists.

This terrible gang had killed some of my police wife’s compatriots in front of the popular Majestic Theater. She had been wounded later while in a gunfight with the same ISIS followers and sorely needed this break to continue to heal. So we thought a short time away from my undercover FBI existence and her injuries as a police lieutenant would restore our energies.

My cousin, James Edmunds, invited us in the first part of August, and even though it was a hot time of year with the threat of hurricanes, we accepted his offer because we needed a break. Normally at this time of the year, Naples also had showers just about every afternoon with high humidity, but he and his spouse lived here all the time except for vacation travel. You see, they were not visiting snowbirds getting away from the northern cold climates and returning when the weather was good. They were used to the heat and preferred it to the horrible seasons of snow and sleet in the north and to the frequent travel necessary to return.

Joining us on this trip to a hot paradise was an old friend who resides in London, Steve Hallcroft. He is the political officer at the new Battersea-located American embassy and is bringing his new girlfriend to whom he was recently engaged. She is a 100 percent Welsh lady, Bronwyn Esther Morgan, who, I understand, also works at the embassy. She was described by Steve as very attractive, with a childlike warmth about her, a happy smile, and large blue eyes. He said on the q.t. that you can’t help but notice her full bosom and her classic figure, and she is quite intelligent along with an interesting Welsh brogue whenever she speaks. She also often quoted Scripture at opportune moments when they were forced to hunt terrorists, which intrigued him. Steve told me that he fell in love with her rather precipitously after his long relationship with Penny, who was with him in Paris before he was moved to London. To her dismay, she was forced to stay in Paris because of her commitment to her job as the European correspondent located in Paris for the New York Mirror. Her boss insisted that she stay right where she was if she wanted to keep her job, and so she did.

Earlier, when I knew our guests were coming to join us in Naples, I had planned to take them one night to a dining room named after a famous Florida pro football coach, Don Shula, situated off of Tamiami Trail. The restaurant in the Hilton hotel was first-class but a much more populist place than the ritzy Ritz-Carlton. We had many more restaurants to show them in both downtown Naples and in North Naples, and of course, they were great dining areas in both areas. While Sherry and I enjoyed relaxing after our trip, which had no time change, our UK friends needed to gather strength from their jet lag, a difference of six hours created by their overseas travel.

When they finally arrived, we couldn’t stay up to greet them because we also were very exhausted, and my wife was still recovering from her wounds. I was glad that I had given them precise directions on how to reach my cousin’s house, including the way to enter the gated community. Because they were going to be so late, we instructed them to seek out immediately the designated bedroom I had written them to have. I purposely left the front door open since the guarded community was so safe. We would have picked them up at the airport in Fort Myers, but after checking the flight schedule, I realized they would not be in until the early morning. We were thus more or less asleep at 3:00 a.m. by the time their delayed flight connection arrived at Fort Myers’s international airport from Miami airport. A taxi was arranged to bring them to our lodging.

I heard in my edgy sleep the main door open, so I changed my mind in order to be polite and to be responsible as host. I thus sleepily got up out of bed and put on my bathrobe just to offer a quick greeting of welcome and to make sure they knew where to go in the house for food or for bedroom. The two drudged their way in, trailing their roll-on bags, and directly entered their designated bedroom. Nothing was spoken, and then I slipped back to our bedroom and got to sleep.

Steve and I had a long history as friends in both New York and in Paris, but Sherry and I had not met Bronwyn yet. We were looking forward to greeting her at a late breakfast in the morning.

When I woke up in the early morning, I was still transfixed by a dream I had had, about that crazy bird I had become so preoccupied about earlier. It was chasing me