My first thought was to somehow get him back on the job as a homicide detective and use that as the basis for a series. But
a chance encounter with a guy I knew who was a former NYPD detective gave me another idea—something more original. This man
had taken a job as a contract agent with the Federal Joint Terrorism Task Force and had begun a new career in counter-terrorism—and
that sounded like a good way to bring John Corey back.
At first, however, I wasn’t sure about having my former NYPD character working with the Feds in a job that he had no experience
in nor apparent aptitude for. But as it turned out, the Joint Terrorism Task Force (which I fictionalized as the Anti-Terrorist
Task Force) worked out well for John Corey and for a continuing series—and thus the follow-up book to
Plum Island
was
The Lion’s Game
, in which we see John Corey reincarnated as a contract agent working for the FBI in counter-terrorism.
When I made this decision about Corey working for the Task Force, this was a relatively unknown organization, but post-9/11
the Task Force was very much in the news, and Corey’s new job, as well as the plots of the John Corey books, had become the
stuff of headlines. So, maybe
that
was prescient—or just fortuitous.
* * *
The Lion’s Game
is based on a historical event—the American air attack on Libya of April 15, 1986. This attack was in retaliation for a Libyan
terrorist bombing of a German nightclub frequented by American military personnel. And our retaliation bombing of Libya by
the U.S. Air Force in 1986 led to the Libyans planting a bomb on Pam Am Flight 103, which exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland,
on December 21, 1988, killing 270 people.
The Lion’s Game
is basically about a further Libyan retaliation for the 1986 air raid on that country. What I try to show in
The Lion’s Game
, and also in
The Lion
(the sequel to
The Lion’s Game
), is the circle of worldwide violence that has been set in motion by attacks and retaliations that have taken place for nearly
thirty years. This has become, as I say in my John Corey books, a war without a clear beginning and a war without an end in
sight.
For action/adventure novelists, the war on terrorism is the new Cold War, providing what seems to be a reliable supply of
plots, villains, heroes, and, unfortunately, victims. Like most Americans, I was very happy when the Cold War ended, and I
will be just as happy if the war on terrorism ends someday; I will find other things to write about.
But until then, global terrorism will remain in the news, and as with every war, novelists will attempt to give some insights
and try to make some sense of the violence and mayhem that journalists
report.
* * *
As I said earlier, a new introduction to an old book is less of an introduction and more of a historical perspective, and
hopefully interesting to my readers who’ve followed the career of John Corey in five of my novels, including the newest,
The Lion
.
The Lion’s Game
has survived in print for over a decade and hopefully will survive many more decades because it is as timely today as when
it was written. Or if you think this book is prescient or prophetic, then it may be more timely now than when I wrote it.
But I leave that judgment to you, the reader. Enjoy!
Nelson DeMille
New York, 2010
The fictional Anti-Terrorist Task Force (ATTF) represented in this novel is based on the actual Joint Terrorist Task Force (JTTF), though I have taken some dramatic liberties and literary license where necessary.
The Joint Terrorist Task Force is a group of hard-working, dedicated, and knowledgeable men and women who are in the front line in the war against terrorism in America.
The characters in this story are entirely fictitious, though some of the workings of the law enforcement agencies portrayed are based on fact, as is the American air raid on Libya in 1986.
BOOK ONE
America, April 15,
The Present
Death is afraid of him
because he has the heart of a lion.
—Arab proverb
You’d think that anyone who’d been shot three times and almost become an organ donor would try to avoid dangerous situations in the future. But, no, I must have this unconscious wish to take myself out of the gene pool or something.
Anyway, I’m John Corey, formerly of the NYPD, Homicide, now working as a Special Contract Agent for the Federal Anti-Terrorist Task Force. I was sitting in the back of a yellow cab on my way from 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy International Airport with a Pakistani suicide driver behind the wheel.
It was a nice spring day, a Saturday, moderate traffic on the Shore Parkway, sometimes known as the Belt Parkway, and recently renamed POW/MIA Parkway to avoid confusion. It was late afternoon, and seagulls from a nearby landfill—formerly known as a garbage dump—were crapping on the taxi’s windshield. I love spring.
I wasn’t headed off on vacation or anything like that—I was reporting for work with the aforementioned Anti-Terrorist Task Force. This is an organization that not too many people know about, which is just as well. The ATTF is divided into sections which focus on specific bunches of troublemakers and bomb chuckers, like the Irish Republican Army, Puerto Rican Independence Movement, black radicals, and other groups that will go unnamed. I’m in the Mideastern section, which is the biggest group and maybe the most important, though to be honest, I don’t know much about Mideastern terrorists. But I was supposed to be learning on the job.
So, to practice my skills, I started up a conversation with the Pakistani guy whose name was Fasid, and who for all I know is a terrorist, though he looked and talked like an okay guy. I asked him, “What was that place you came from?”
“Islamabad. The capital.”
“Really? How long have you been here?”
“Ten years.”
“You like it here?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Well, my ex-brother-in-law, Gary, for one. He’s always bad-mouthing America. Wants to move to New Zealand.”
“I have an uncle in New Zealand.”
“No kidding? Anybody left in Islamabad?”
He laughed, then asked me, “You meeting somebody at the airport?”
“Why do you ask?”
“No luggage.”
“Hey, you’re good.”
“So, you’re meeting somebody? I could hang around and take you back to the city.”
Fasid’s English was pretty good—slang, idioms, and all that. I replied, “I have a ride back.”
“You sure? I could hang around.”
Actually, I was meeting an alleged terrorist who’d surrendered himself to the U.S. Embassy in Paris, but I didn’t think that was information I needed to share with Fasid. I said, “You a Yankee fan?”
“Not anymore.” Whereupon he launched into a tirade against Steinbrenner, Yankee Stadium, the price of tickets, the salaries of the players, and so forth. These terrorists are clever, sounding just like loyal citizens.
Anyway, I tuned the guy out and thought about how I’d wound up here. As I indicated, I was a homicide detective, one of New York’s Finest, if I do say so. A year ago this month, I was playing dodge-the-bullets with two Hispanic gentlemen up on West 102nd Street in what was probably a case of mistaken identity, or sport shooting, since there seemed to be no reason for the attempted whack. Life is funny sometimes. Anyway, the perps were still at large, though I had my eye out for them, as you might imagine.
After my near-death experience and upon release from the hospital, I accepted my Uncle Harry’s offer to stay at his summer house on Long Island to convalesce. The house is located about a hundred road miles from West 102nd Street, which was fine. Anyway, while I was out there, I got involved with this double murder of a husband and wife, fell in love twice, almost got killed. Also, one of the women I fell in love with, Beth Penrose by name, is still sort of in my life.
While all this was going on out on eastern Long Island, my divorce became final. And as if I wasn’t already having a bad R&R at the beach, I wound up making the professional acquaintance of a schmuck on the double homicide case named Ted Nash of the Central Intelligence Agency who I took a big dislike to, and who hated my guts in return, and who, lo and behold, was now part of my ATTF team. It’s a small world, but not that small, and I don’t believe in coincidence.
There was also another guy involved with that case, George Foster, an FBI agent, who was okay, but not my cup of tea either.
In any case, it turns out that this double homicide was not a Federal case, and Nash and Foster disappeared, only to reappear in my life about four weeks ago when I got assigned to this ATTF Mideastern team. But no sweat, I’ve put in for a transfer to the ATTF’s Irish Republican Army section, which I will probably get. I don’t have any real feelings about the IRA either way, but at least the IRA babes are easy to look at, the guys are more fun than your average Arab terrorist, and the Irish pubs are primo. I could do some real good in the anti-IRA section. Really.
Anyway, after all this mess out on Long Island, I get offered this great choice of being hauled in front of the NYPD disciplinary board for moonlighting or whatever, or taking a three-quarter medical disability and going away. So I took the medical, but also negotiated a job at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan where I live. Before I got shot, I’d taught a class at John Jay as an Adjunct Professor, so I wasn’t asking for much and I got it.
Starting in January, I was teaching two night classes at JJ and one day class, and I was getting bored out of my mind, so my ex-partner, Dom Fanelli, knows about this Special Contract Agent program with the Feds where they hire former law enforcement types to work with ATTF. I apply, I’m accepted, probably for all the wrong reasons, and here I am. The pay’s good, the perks are okay, and the Federal types are mostly schmucks. I have this problem with Feds, like most cops do, and not even sensitivity training would help.
But the work seems interesting. The ATTF is a unique and, I may say, elite group (despite the schmucks) that only exists in New York City and environs. It’s made up mostly of NYPD detectives who are great guys, FBI, and some quasi-civilian guys like me hired to round out the team, so to speak. Also, on some teams, when needed, are CIA prima donnas, and also some DEA—Drug Enforcement Agency people who know their business, and know about connections between the drug trade and the terrorist world.
Other team players include people from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms of Waco, Texas, fame, plus cops from surrounding suburban counties, and New York State Police. There are other Federal types from agencies I can’t mention, and last but not least, we have a few Port Authority detectives assigned to some teams. These PA guys are helpful at airports, bus terminals, train stations, docks, some bridges and tunnels under their control, and other places, like the World Trade Center, where their little empire extends. We have it all pretty much covered, but even if we didn’t, it sounds really impressive.
The ATTF was one of the main investigating groups in the World Trade Center bombing and the TWA 800 explosion off Long Island. But sometimes we take the show on the road. For instance, we also sent a team to help out with the African embassy bombings, though the name ATTF was hardly mentioned in the news, which is how they like it. All of this was before my time, and things have been quiet since I’ve been here, which is how
I
like it.
The reason the almighty Feds decided to team up with the NYPD and form the ATTF, by the way, is that most FBI people are not from New York and don’t know a pastrami sandwich from the Lexington Avenue subway. The CIA guys are a little slicker and talk about cafés in Prague and the night train to Istanbul and all that crap, but New York is not their favorite place to be. The NYPD has street smarts, and that’s what you need to keep track of Abdul Salami-Salami and Paddy O’Bad and Pedro Viva Puerto Rico and so on.
Your average Fed is Wendell Wasp from West Wheatfield, Iowa, whereas the NYPD has mucho Hispanics, lots of blacks, a million Irish, and even a few Muslims now, so you get this cultural diversity on the force that is not only politically cool and correct, but actually useful and effective. And when the ATTF can’t steal active-duty NYPD people, they hire ex-NYPD like me. Despite my so-called disability, I’m armed, dangerous, and nasty. So there it is.
We were approaching JFK, and I said to Fasid, “So, what did you do for Easter?”
“Easter? I don’t celebrate Easter. I’m Muslim.”
See how clever I am? The Feds would’ve sweated this guy for an hour to make him admit he was a Muslim. I got it out of him in two seconds. Just kidding. But, you know, I really have to get out of the Mideast section and into the IRA bunch. I’m part Irish and part English, and I could work both sides of that street.
