UPDATES     CONTENTS     MAIN

Spoilers. As an experienced author and publisher, I know that explaining a novel in detail actually enhances the potential reader's understanding of the project, and whets the appetite (or not, as the case may be). Some of what I offer here may seem to be a spoiler, but that increases your understanding of the project and, I hope, may increase your interest in actually reading the novel. In whatever case, I hope your consciousness will help avert yet another horrific 9/11 experience. So here goes. The novel is closely patterned on events surrounding MH370, but I based the title on the Boeing type (777) rather than MH370 to avoid confusion with conspiracy cranks.

Part One    Part Two    Part Three    Part Four    Epilog: Maps   

Setting: R&R. Hero Jack Dorsey and his Team Gray have completed an unspecified special forces mission under a combined U.S. Forces theater command someplace in Asia. Jack is a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve, and a History professor in San Diego in real life. He is the millionaire owner of an estate in Temecula, San Diego's wine country. Jack and his small group of enlisted men from around the U.S. are joined by their wives—including Jack's pregnant young newlywed bride Catherine—for a well deserved vacation on a famous beach resort by the Andaman Sea around Malaysia.

Missing Airliner Flight 777. Two of the group, Robert and Marian Keaka of Hawai'i, take Flight 777 to Beijing to visit with distant relatives. This gives us some small personal, emotional stake in the plot and action. Jack and Catherine, and two other couples, board an airliner headed for the U.S. This is Zero Hour on the Flight Clock of Flt. 777. When the group arrive in Manila, Jack and his two senior noncommissioned officers or NCOs (Ben Latoni and Ray Marston) are asked to follow a U.S. Embassy official to another tarmac, where they board a special U.S. military aircraft on a mysterious, urgent new mission. The wives, including Catherine, fly on to the U.S. and safety.

Arrival on Diego Garcia. In the complex, multi-service chain of command safely centered on a U.S. military base in the region, Lieutenant Colonel Lew Minchao takes charge of the growing operation. Jack and his companions learn that the Flight with Robert and Marian Keaka on board has vanished. Terrorism is a real possibility. Jack, who is both an intellectual (Ph.D.) and a warrior, begins to analyze incoming data at their new command post on the British-owned, U.S.-leased outpost in the middle of the Indian Ocean. For some readers, the next part becomes a bit boring as they pore over data and discuss the possibilities (which are essentially my three lemmas: accident, sabotage, or hijack). Jack's primary strategic concern is to avert another 9/11. The worst case scenario is that a stolen airliner loaded with hundreds of tons of high explosives (or poisons, including dirty or radioactive bomb material) could attack a high-value target. Painstakingly, Jack and his team construct a timeline to parallel known data points, including the infamous Good night. Malaysian three seven zero. exchange at 01:19:30 Malaysia Time, 37 minutes into the flight.

TOP     Part One    Part Two    Part Three    Part Four    Epilog: Maps