tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-226780052011-04-21T12:56:43.526-07:00The Terrorbuster SagaThe fictional adventures of a superhero in the Great War On Terror.
This blog is intended to present in a beginning-to-end fashion a story that is being serialized in standard blogging fashion on my regular blog - BLOGOTIONALJohn Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comBlogger191100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1140368744165353722006-03-21T09:00:00.000-08:002006-02-25T05:25:37.916-08:00John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1140878906132771902006-03-21T08:59:00.001-08:002006-02-25T06:48:26.143-08:00INSTALLMENT #1 - AUTHOR'S NOTETelling a story on a blog is not as easy as you might think. In a sense, blogs run "backwards." The latest stuff is on top and older stuff is further down. Thus if you come back later to recover an idea you have developed over several posts, you may find yourself digging through the archives to find all the material. And, if you have a blog with as much stuff as John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1141330111676438462006-03-21T08:58:00.000-08:002006-03-28T05:03:53.926-08:00INSTALLMENT #2David Carter has better access to the President of the United States than any other soul on the planet – and no one in the media has ever heard of him. He works in a very small office in the Executive Office Building next to the White House in Washington. To the world he is just another bureaucratic functionary. But to the President, he is something very special.Today, like every John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1141414560550899252006-03-21T08:57:00.000-08:002006-04-04T05:18:18.120-07:00INSTALLMENT #3For two years or so Carter labored to build a technical infrastructure that would do what the President had envisioned. The technology was easy enough, but the bureaucracy was a far less manageable foe. The various agencies did not trust each other, and worse, they wanted to hoard the information they had to make themselves look good.Despite the fact that no one ever released John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1141776130563408482006-03-21T08:56:00.000-08:002006-04-11T06:39:18.773-07:00INSTALLMENT #4True to form, the President loved nicknames. He constantly called Carter "Terrorbuster," which Carter loathed. Every time the President used that name, Carter thought of children’s shoes and that ugly dog and he cringed. But the guy was President. There was little Carter could do.Carter did, however, love the other nickname the President had for him – “PhD sweeper”. The first time John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1141884242652309092006-03-21T08:55:00.000-08:002006-04-18T06:16:09.693-07:00INSTALLMENT #5Carter took a breather and checked his personal email. There was a note from his "girlfriend", Amy. He didn’t really know if they were together anymore. After he went back into the civil service they found themselves living about 200 miles apart. They went through the motions as best they could, but the distance, and the fact that, at least for him, the relationship had been more John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1141944868876340822006-03-21T08:54:00.000-08:002006-04-25T06:19:35.486-07:00INSTALLMENT #6Turns out it wasn’t as hard as he thought to get to Ukraine, or to Sophiaskia for that matter. A quick trip through the State Department database and Carter found groups coming and going all the time. The issue was choosing the right group that would give him a useful cover and access to the tools and communications he would need.He would fit best with a military group, but they John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1142036089489162562006-03-21T08:53:00.000-08:002006-05-02T05:58:26.546-07:00INSTALLMENT #7Aeroflot is entirely unremarkable as an airline. Inside the former Soviet Union it's wretched, but internationally it's simply serviceable. Such was this flight on which Carter and Amy found themselves. And as is typical, even in these post-Soviet days, the plane was huge and mostly empty.The braggadocio that so marked the Soviet Union continues in Russia to this day. They convert John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1142465120909500022006-03-21T08:52:00.000-08:002006-05-09T04:54:11.186-07:00INSTALLMENT #8No city in the former Soviet, taken as a whole, can be described as beautiful. There are too many hideously ugly block apartments that were dilapidated they day they were built, let alone 40 years later. But at the core of the old cities there are batches of genuine architectural splendor – all of it, of course, dating back to the tsarist days.Kiev, unlike Moscow or St. Petersburg, John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1142468177189815492006-03-21T08:51:00.000-08:002006-05-16T05:57:41.453-07:00INSTALLMENT #9Carter spent the evening in his hotel bar turning down the hookers and pretending to get very drunk. About 10:30 the primarily business crowd thinned significantly. Carter started going on and on about a "real party," eventually stumbling up to the pimp holding forth at the door."Where can a guy go to get a drink with a little party?""Right here," responded the pimp."Nah, I want a John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1142534555851636992006-03-21T08:50:00.000-08:002006-05-23T05:42:15.700-07:00INSTALLMENT #10They had reason to have faith in their encryption. It took Carter an entire 20 minutes to get into the network. It only took him 15 to get into the DOD the first time.The first thing that Carter discovered was that the entire operation was a front for what looked like the KGB, but of course, they don’t exist anymore. Then it dawned on him, "Russian mob, old KGB, same thing." This John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1142890630724263782006-03-21T08:49:00.000-08:002006-05-30T05:45:29.113-07:00INSTALLMENT #11The next morning when Carter boarded the delegation bus to Sophiaskia, the only empty seat was next to a woman he did not recognize from the bar or the dinner, or from his perusal of the computer files. She was; however, amazingly attractive, and she tapped the seat next to her in a somewhat suggestive, but not over-the-top fashion. Figuring a little skirt chasing would aid his John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1142979169288709752006-03-21T08:48:00.000-08:002006-06-06T05:47:26.483-07:00INSTALLMENT #12It took both of them to move to door, but once through, Carter looked at Amy and said, "Start talking."As they descended a spiral staircase leading deep under the facility, Amy explained that Carter was not the only shoulder on which the President had tapped. She explained that he had developed a small network of reliable people to call on when the wheels of government simply turn John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1143593554733458852006-03-21T08:47:00.000-08:002006-06-13T05:14:20.700-07:00INSTALLMENT #13As they approached Kiev, Carter slipped Ilya a stimulant and roused him. When they arrived at the hotel, Ilya was still groggy and it was no trick for Carter to lead him up to his room. Hotel staff didn't give it a second thought – hung over and groggy is a natural state of existence in the former Soviet.Carter tied Ilya up in a chair and then went into the bathroom and shut the John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1143593831357741712006-03-21T08:46:00.000-08:002006-06-20T05:54:59.933-07:00INSTALLMENT #14While he was cooking up his new "Rob Self" identity, Carter had once again hacked into US homeland security systems. The information he had gathered was soon making its way, in various disguises, to DOE NEST teams, FBI, local authorities and everyone else who needed to know.Knowing it was Sophiaskia material made it easy for the NEST team to find out what warehouse had the materialJohn Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1143594225439526942006-03-21T08:45:00.000-08:002006-06-27T05:49:34.113-07:00INSTALLMENT #15The Kiev airport is like a lot of other airports in the world – one runway with one side developed for commercial use and the other for military. As 'Rob Self' sat in a departure lounge he noted a bunch of people running, with weapons, towards a hangar on the military side of the airport. There was obviously a lot of activity, even obvious gunfire, but the distance and the John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1143677853936069602006-03-21T08:44:00.000-08:002006-07-18T06:49:02.966-07:00INSTALLMENT #16No one in the executive Office Building thought twice about it when Carter retuned for work. No one there really knew who he was anyway. But when he took the long walk through the tunnels into the White House and strode towards the President's office the stares and dropped jaws formed an invisible force which he had to work to overcome. He engaged none of their looks. As he John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1143758960454174252006-03-21T08:43:00.000-08:002006-07-25T05:47:13.806-07:00INSTALLMENT #17The President led Carter out of his working office and into the Oval Office. They walked to the fireplace and the President fiddled with a few books on the mantle. The fireplace rose like some sort of unbelievably elaborate overhead door, revealing the interior of an elevator car."After you," said the President waving Carter into the car. The descent took forever. They were going John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22678005.post-1144807113618820922006-03-21T08:42:00.000-08:002006-08-01T05:49:01.156-07:00INSTALLMENT #18For next couple of months, Carter's life was a blur. Some of it was because of what they were doing to him, but not much of it. He only had one surgery in the whole process. Everything was done with injections and radiation and fiber optic mini-intrusions. At one point, somebody said something about nano-tech actually building systems inside him. He didn't really remember.His John Schroederhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02917037602880789273noreply@blogger.com