The Espionage Game
As a technologist, there are only so many hours you can spend
beating your head against the wall over some technical issue before
you have to look for an escape. Mine was creative writing. Naturally,
I wrote about what I knew, technology, and Tom Clancy's The Hunt
for Red October was certainly an inspiration. I also loved Le
Carré. The whole concept of spymasters being rather ordinary people
appealed to me. These set the stage for this book. However, the
seminal event was learning of Gerald Bull's super cannons in Iraq.
What could such a weapon do? More important, how could you take
it out if it was well hidden, which undoubtedly it would be? The
wheels began to turn.
About that time I was also researching the future of combat
aircraft. As a long-term subscriber to Aviation Week and Space
Technology, I was keeping a breast of the technology being
proposed. Soon the thought of an intelligent computer formed, one that
could fly a plane in combat.
As any author will tell you, books never go as planned. Characters
do and say unexpected things and take on a life of their own. As the
author, you merely are along for the ride, writing it down as fast as
you can type.
So it was with The Game as this book was first titled.
Lazarus and Grigori were the ones behind that. Grigori couldn't
control himself with such a prize as CLEO to be had, and so he tried
to grab it. Lazarus, apparently out-to-pasture, reacted, and soon they
became adversaries as before. The two Cold War warriors, gray-haired
and paunchy, were still as cunning as ever.
Likewise, Cleo took on a character of her own. She turned out to be
female, and a Tomboy to boot. Eager to please, she quickly endeared
herself in my heart, although Jerry, the pilot asked to teach her how
to fight, did not share that opinion for weeks. It was fun watching
her melt his heart.
I hope you have as much fun reading The Espionage Game as I
had writing it.
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