Book I: The Disappearance (The Fallen Race Trilogy). Colin Patrick Garvey

“They're here.”

      Obviously, Sean can figure out what this means based on the current condition of Kaley's home. Unfortunately, since there are no bodies, Sean cannot determine the outcome of what subsequently ensued.

      Sean slams his fist down on the desk, creating a loud, cracking noise that sounds like a gunshot in the empty house. Sean's temper begins to flare as he thinks of the possibility of the United States government behind the events of last night. It seems inconceivable that the American military would be involved in the disappearance of his family and over a hundred other people from the beach last night. Still, he thinks of the sleek Apache helicopters and the soldiers storming the beach and it suddenly does not seem so far-fetched.

      One thing Sean is certain of is that Kaley was interrupted. His friend knew he was in danger and yet he still wanted to leave a record of it in case someone stumbled onto his journal.

      Suddenly, something else occurs to Sean, a distant memory from his childhood. When he and Jon played “soldier boy” in the woods with the other kids on the block, it always seemed that it was the two of them versus everyone else. As a result, the two of them devised a secret system whereby they used a subtle marker that indicated they were still “alive” and had not been captured by the other team. When one of them found the marker, he picked it up and placed it at another strategic location where he believed the other might see it, with the top of the marker indicating which direction he was headed.

      Sean scrambles up from the desk and begins looking around for it. He checks the floors, the counter top in the kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom. He looks around the office once again, but to no avail. It is possible that Jon forgot about the marker, too. After all, Sean's memory barely conjured up the forgotten child's game.

      Then, Sean glances at a picture on the wall of the two of them on graduation day from high school. Such young, vibrant faces ready to go out and tackle the world, like nothing can stop them. They appear as carefree as two kids can be with an uncertain and unknown future stretching out before them.

      Sean approaches the wall, less focused on the picture than the frame itself, which is slightly askew. Knowing Jon, even after a brutal fight, he would probably adjust the frame to ensure that it is straight. Sean lifts the frame to look behind it and a huge grin ripples across his face.

       The marker.

      It is not green like they always used in the woods and it is certainly not the real thing, but rather a drawing. A crude drawing at that. Sean can understandably sympathize with his friend's artwork. Sean stares at it and knows that Jon is alive, for now.

      He allows the frame to fall back over the marker, a shamrock that has been hastily sketched on the wall using, at the time, what was probably the best available material: blood.

      Sean only hopes it is someone else's.

      SIX

       The Pentagon

      General Theodore Parker tries to rub the weariness from his eyes as he sits alone in the same conference room in the Pentagon where the group gathered the previous night. The televisions that occupy one side of the wall are muted now as they no longer depict, ad nauseam, the grisly pictures of death and destruction from the night before. The cameras that pan over the beach now display a serene scene, a surreal calm, with the sun breaking over the beach as Lake Michigan's waves slowly amble up the shore, like delicate ghostly fingers that quietly leave their mark and then are quickly washed away, soon to be replaced. The reporters point and gesture over the long stretch of sand, giving the same, sad eulogy that can never possibly do justice to over a hundred lives lost in what seems to be the breadth of an instant.

      Parker slowly opens his eyes and focuses on the televisions, but only for a moment. He seems to stare past them, as if by looking through them he might catch a glance of what happened on that beach and why.

      Last night, upon hearing news of the attack, his mind began to race with possible perpetrators, and the group reinforced his initial suspects: Islamic fundamentalists, Muslim radicals, al-Qaeda, a rogue faction of the North Korean military, and on and on. There seemed to be no end to the list of potential enemies the United States has made in the past few years, a fact that several in attendance subtly blamed on the current administration's international policies, which in turn caused more grumbling and finger-pointing. Parker quickly quashed any discussion of the current administration because he does not care if certain policies were the root cause of the attack. He simply wants to find the culprits responsible.

      In truth, there were no real answers that materialized at last night's brief bull session. Only more questions.

      Theories were posited and dismissed, possible motives tossed back and forth, and ideas both practical and extreme were presented. One person even suggested that maybe the intended target was simply a single individual who was present on the beach, which was greeted by several skeptical guffaws. This seemed too outlandish to even consider, let alone worth time to investigate. For anyone who knows General Parker, however, everything and everyone would be explored to the fullest extent possible, with no theories or ideas off-limits or taboo. No one would be above suspicion, including fellow Americans. At the mention of this thought, the entire room bristled, not caring to dwell on the ramifications such a scenario, if true, would have on the public consciousness.

      It was certainly bad enough, many in the room believed, that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols leveled the Alfred Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City without the American intelligence agencies so much as catching a whiff that something was amiss. But for Americans to be the primary suspects once again, after 9/11 and all of the alleged security upgrades, the backlash would be fierce. Furthermore, it would show the rest of the world that the United States is unable to even monitor their own people, let alone terrorists around the globe. The whole administration, along with the military and intelligence communities, would be roasted on an open flame by the press. The same question would be posed without mercy:

      How could you have let this happen, again?

      General Parker, however, is not afraid to ask the tough questions or explore unpopular theories. And he did, all throughout the night. He lambasted his colleagues on everything from suspicious passport identification to how tight the security is on the Canadian border. Nothing was out-of-bounds and he made certain that everyone in the room understands the rules of the playing field, which, essentially, contains only one rule: there are no rules in this game.

      After an exhausting night of questions fired back and forth and theories bounced off the walls, the truth is that they have no clearer picture of what happened last night than when they started. Too much speculation and conjecture without a solid link or motive.

      Parker dismissed them all a short while ago, disgusted with himself and his colleagues, knowing that their collective fatigue was not doing them any favors. He has no new information to offer the President, no quick leads or prime suspects. Actually, there are several suspects, but these, he would acknowledge, are the most obvious ones.

      Now, alone with his thoughts, Parker begins to form an idea out of the void of nothingness that has occupied the room for the last several hours.

      Something does not feel right to him. There was no warning and not even the slightest bit of intelligence that suggested an attack on American soil over the holiday weekend. No informers, leaks, anonymous calls or letters. No misinformation or misdirection, absolutely nothing. Obviously, for a terrorist act to be successful, the element of surprise is a crucial component. However, usually some type of data, however cryptic, is gathered, processed, digested every which way, then converted into usable material and disseminated to every federal agency, top military brass, anti-terrorist unit, state police department, sheriff's office, security guard, and rent-a-cop to look out for.

      Even with 9/11, there were subtle hints and clues beforehand that may have been critical to preventing the attacks had the various American intelligence agencies been more forthcoming and cooperative with one another. If this information had been compiled as a whole, it is possible that someone could have predicted that