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| Brian A. Hartford's
Success Story |
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WATH OUT FOR:
RED INK: The Timpano Dossier
By Brian A. Hartford and Peggy McCardle has been accepted for publication by Publish America and will be on the shelves by early December.
Long before the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in the Kennedy era, and towards the end of the Korean Conflict, the CIA trained and equipped a small group of Tibetans residing in the United States. They formed a corps of one hundred and seventy Kamba guerrillas who were eventually air dropped in May of 1958 on Chigu Lama Thang Plateau in Tibet. In advance of the insurgency, the CIA clandestinely shipped supplies and promised support to the rebels and freedom fighters within the country. The United States just as quickly withdrew support to pacify the Chinese and the Koreans, in peace talks at that time to end the “war.” They left the Kamba guerrillas, literally, at the LZ, to die- thus bringing more pain and even genocide to the Tibetan people at the hands of the Chinese.
The story blends fictionalized history with a fast moving tale in the Tom Clancy and Dan Brown tradition of blending true events and high technology. The heroes consist of a desperately writer’s-blocked post-best-seller author, Rex, who is a tough Marine Corps Vietnam veteran, and Pam, his editor and mentor who is trying to motivate Rex to get back to work
Pam and Rex meet for a business dinner engagement at the Timpano Chop House in Chevy Chase. As Rex is bemoaning his need for motivation for an exciting story, Pam overhears a conversation from near-by table. She recognizes an obscure dialect of Chinese with which she is familiar. Rex reluctantly goes along with Pam to investigate, and they witness two brutal gangland-style killings. Pam and Rex are quickly in over their heads. Rex contacts an old Marine buddy who is now a career CIA Agent for help.
The pace of the story rapidly increases with a bloody assassination attempt by professional hit men, and Rex is wounded and in a lot of trouble with his CIA buddy who comes to the rescue. Instead of doing time in a federal prison, Rex, because of his top secret knowledge of cryptographies, is returned to active duty in the Corps, to be part of a covert mission to recover secret codes that the villains were passing. Pam is recruited because of her foreign language abilities. They both attend Special Operations training in Quantico, training for the mission to recover the code boxes. It is revealed that the CIA completed the scrubbed Star Wars weapon system, now a weapon of mass destruction which could end up in the hands of a Tibetan extremist group. It is a story of treachery, revenge, betrayal, terrorism, stolen codes, high tech weaponry, and love, with a bang-up ending after many twists and turns.
The authors, Brian and Peggy, weave an exciting tale with their unusual literary technique. The novel, ECHO! FIVE! HOTEL!, based on Brian’s Vietnam War experiences, is the basis for several characters in Red Ink.
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