Strike Force Zulu - Chapter 1

This novel, such as it is, has been in the works for a very long time. I spoke with David regarding writing it back in late 2013. David, Tony, and I spent a lot of time discussing how our novels would interact and the plans were great. Both David and Tony finished their novels (David his full trilogy and Tony his stand-alone), and I had much of my novel completed. I was planning on having it completed sometime in summer of 2014 around the same time as Tony’s, but then things happened.

Life, as we all know, loves to throw unexpected things our way. I lost my job and was struggling to pay the mortgage and other bills. I was working any odd job I could find just to make ends meet. I finally managed to find an outstanding opportunity with a great company in the fall of 2014 and happily went to work with them. I got tied up in learning my new position and then the company asked me to go overseas to work in Colombia in early 2015.

I was thrilled to be able to go to another country and the position was supposed to be short term… only a few months. I was looking forward to being able to use the down time to complete my novel. Two and half years, a robbery, and a hospital stay later, all of my notes, materials, laptops, hard drives, etc… were gone. Taken by those who only had interest in the value of the hardware… I had written well over two-thirds of the novel and was steadily plugging along on it, when suddenly it was no longer there.

Distraught, I put it aside and focused on the positive. I had my life, and the ideas were still there, even if what I had written would never come out the same way again. I needed to take a break from it and focus on the real world. My company again asked me to do a different overseas posting almost as soon as I got back from Colombia, this time, I was headed to Saudi Arabia, supposedly only a week or so… and as you can guess, seven months later I was finally back in the United States. Then I had to learn the new position I was being placed in, which is wonderful by the way, as well as begin to remember what it was like to be in a relationship with my wife.

Now that has been accomplished, it finally time to start reworking on writing this novel. While it will not be exactly same as it had been when I wrote it last… that work was never completed, never published, and will never see the light of day except for perhaps an excerpt here and there. For those of you who have read those excerpts, just take them as a teaser, a trailer piece that like modern films, will not be included in this, the final, work. It may take some time to complete, but unlike before, I will make sure it gets done.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with David’s works, you can find his website here: http://davidpforsyth.com/

I look forward to your comments and criticism, as well as hope you enjoy reading this as much as I have when conceptualizing it and writing it for you.

Aalan aka Christopher Fells