Dead on Arrival (38 page)
The vulnerability of chemical plants and refineries to terrorist attacks is real and has been the subject of various television shows and congressional hearings. The potentially lethal affects of hydrofluoric acid on humans is also real, and the statement that the chemical ‘can just melt your lungs’ was taken from a transcript of the PBS show
NOW
.
I was also amazed that as late as April 2007, while I was still writing this book, and twelve years after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, there was a bill in the House (HR 1680) proposing, finally, to increase controls and make it more difficult for terrorists to buy ammonium nitrate fertilizers. It’s possible that the bill will have passed by the time this book is published – but
twelve years
!
Lastly, I must confess that I took a little literary license with the DEA building in Washington, D.C. The DEA does have an office for its Washington Field Division located on the fifth floor of a building on I Street NW – and the building is located a couple of blocks from the Gallery Place metro station as described in the story – but the building does not have
DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION
chiseled over the building’s entrance. Instead it says
DEPARTMENT OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS
. For what I’m sure are some very good reasons, the DEA tends not to mark its office locations very well, and I had a heck of a time finding one of their other buildings located in Arlington, getting some funny looks from a security guard when I … but that’s a different story.
I wish to thank a number of people: Frank Horton for proofreading and fact-checking all my books before anyone else sees them; Bob Koch for his editorial comments and his technical advice on bizarre things like hiding meth labs and plastic weapons; Jerry Main for counsel on guns and bullets; Joe Smaldore, brother-in-law extraordinaire, for driving me all over D.C. to look at locations in the book, and in particular the trip to West Virginia to locate the home of Jubal Pugh; Bill Harman for introducing me to a man who will remain nameless but who provided an insider’s insight on the F-16s guarding the nofly zone around D.C.
I am grateful to everyone at Grove/Atlantic who helped with the production of this book, but particularly to my editor Jamison Stoltz who improved the book tremendously and to Morgan Entrekin, president of Grove/Atlantic, for giving me the opportunity to publish this novel.
Lastly, and as always, to David Gernert and everyone at The Gernert Company. David, I just can’t thank you enough for the work you did to find the right home for this book.
Mike Lawson is a former nuclear engineer who turned to full-time writing in May 2003. He lives with his family in the United States.
Dead on Arrival
is his third novel featuring Joe DeMarco.
Visit
www.mikelawsonbooks.com
for more information on Mike Lawson
Praise for Mike Lawson
‘This assured first novel shows Michael Lawson to be a talented storyteller, and DeMarco makes a likeable hero as he follows an intricate trail through some typic-ally murky American politics’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Mike Lawson shows every understanding of the skills required of a thriller writer to keep a reader fully engaged and utterly thrilled’
Guardian
‘Mike Lawson writes a mean thriller and has a sense of humour that hurts. I love this one’
Independent on Sunday
‘
The Inside Ring
is the kind of whodunnit thriller you can’t stop thinking about while you’re reading and can’t stop thinking about once you’re alone’
Vince Flynn, bestselling author of
Memorial Day
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The Inside Ring
The Payback
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is
entirely coincidental.
Harper
An Imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published as
House Rules
in the USA 2008
Copyright © Mike Lawson 2008
Mike Lawson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
w
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ePub edition September 2008 ISBN-9780007287130
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