Engineer Takes on Biological Weapons in CIA Thriller
By Jody Ewing
03/07/02
A part-time job with the CIA is fun, thinks engineer Martin Conley, until one
day when a dying KGB agent gives him information that changes his
life: a multi-warhead anthrax missile was installed in the ocean near
Midway Island during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Thus begins a physical and moral journey for this atypical hero in
Clive Warner's first novel "Appointment in Samara," published March 1. Conley travels to the Wadi Hadhramount in South Yemen partnered
with Alia, a beautiful Arab woman, to retrieve the weapon's control
codes. He's soon drawn into a deadly civil war between North and South
Yemen and finally must decide - will he obey his CIA masters - or
make decisions based on ultimate good?
"Strangely, events have made it topical, although the first draft was completed
18 months ago," says Warner, a former international project engineer who has lived and worked
in more than 30 countries. "I was amazed when the anthrax attacks started. I remember thinking, 'This can't
be true.'"
The story is intended to show that the simplistic, patriotic mind-set
is not always necessarily right or just, and, if followed blindly,
can lead to genocidal actions. Warner, who lives in North Mexico,
says the idea for the book came from the History Channel.
"I was watching a program about the Cuban Missile Crisis on the History Channel
where they were describing how the U.S. sent every 'eye' that it could to find
the suspected missiles - satellites, surveillance aircraft, even regular jets
at low level," he says. "Suddenly the idea came: what if the crisis was just a diversion? Suppose, at
the same time, while all surveillance was directed at Cuba, the Soviets were
emplacing a super weapon, a 'doomsday device,' elsewhere?"
Since weaponized anthrax already had been developed, Warner settled
on it for his doomsday device. He immersed himself in research, including
data on the Gruinard Island tests that were used in early bio-war
experiments by the British government. His goal was to write an authentic
action-adventure that contained no holes in the plot. He also wanted
to write a thriller that focused on engineers.
"Most people, in my experience, think engineers are boring people," Warner says. "In reality engineers change peoples' lives. Engineers build war machines and
are indispensable on the battlefield."
Additionally, Warner strove to break the stereotype that engineers
are cold, unfeeling people. "They're humans like any others, with the same capacity for emotion and loyalty," he says.
The book ties in with Warner's actual experiences and some of the
book's events are fictional versions of recent history. Having traveled
to South Yemen twice, Warner installed a mobile phone system in the
Wadi Hadhramount and surveyed 60 miles of coastal territory in the
'Five Towns' area. He was amongst a group of diplomats during President
Ali Nasser's visit to Sey'un in the Wadi.
"He made a speech which even I, with my poor Arabic, could see as a harbinger
of war with the North," Warner says. "Shortly after my visits, a civil war did indeed take place in the Yemen, between
North and South."
Warner based his title on Somerset Maugham's short story from the
'30s, and going back further to the original Persian fable. In the
fable, a man tries to flee from his fate, only to meet up with it
in the very place he flees to. The title "Appointment in Samarra" also was used 20 years ago in the John O'Hara novel.
"My character, too, wants to avoid the dreadful responsibilities that descend
upon him, but ultimately must accept the fact that some are chosen as the instruments
of change," Warner says. "There is a scene in the film 'Zulu' where, as thousands of Zulus are massing
for the attack, a British soldier asks his sergeant, 'Why us? Why do we have
to be the ones?' And the sergeant replies, 'Why, because we're 'ere, lad. Because
we're 'ere.'"
That line, says Warner, sums it all up. "Ultimately all of us must make some fateful decision 'because we're 'ere.'"
