Reading between the lines

[Guest guest]

I am an AOL user also. I feel that I am missing some email. All of a sudden

people are talking about something that I have seen nothing about. <grin>

<waving bye bye>

[Guest guest]

http://www.winchesterstar.com/TheWinchesterStar/031227/Life_DERby.asp

Bio-Terrorist Attack Disaster Drill Turns Into Reality in New Book by Area Author

By Karl B. Hille The Winchester Star

Frederick County resident Ray Derby’s second disaster thriller is really two books in one.

“Bradley’s Ghost” tells the tale of a devastating bio-terrorism attack in the American prairie. But if you read between the lines, it also paints a more chilling and accurate picture of America’s failure to prepare for such a disaster.

And Ray should know.

The 68-year-old former civil defense director served as an emergency operations adviser to the White House for more than 20 years.

“They are thrillers; they are terrorism type books, but they have a (message) behind them, even if they’re fiction,” he said. “There is a lot of factual background.”

A lot of the readers of “Bradley’s Ghost,” as with his first book “Shadow Government,” work in the emergency management field, Ray said. “They can read between the lines.”

“Bradley’s Ghost” takes place as the state of South Dakota is entering a federally funded “top-off” exercise simulating a terrorist attack — in this case distribution of botulism toxin.

But in the middle of the exercise, a group of religious extremists unleashes a real biological attack, killing thousands.

“It tells what could happen, and it also tells how ill-prepared we are for something like that,” he said.

The book is written in plain English, a fact Ray stressed, because he doesn’t want to bog his readers down in acronyms and technical jargon. And he likes to throw in a lot of plot curves and twists to keep his readers guessing.

Derby’s scenario differs from actual attack simulations, in that most of those conducted by the federal government focused on major cities.

In one such exercise last year in Denver, Colo., Ray said the exercise lasted seven days before the agencies involved canceled the scenario out of complete exhaustion.

In many of the scenarios, first responders, including police and fire departments, have refused to enter attack scenes, because they lack the proper equipment to keep their personnel alive to do their jobs.

The exercises paint a pretty accurate picture of what happens in these exercises and what would happen in a real attack, said Derby’s wife Bea, who also worked in the civil defense field.

“It’s the first responders on the local level that are the last ones to get equipped and funded,” she said.

The Homeland Security Act did little to help things, Ray said.

“I’m not a big fan of Homeland Security at all,” he said. “They made a big mistake as far as I’m concerned when they took those 22 agencies and dumped them together.

“Now they’re spending all their time trying to get it together, instead of doing the job they’re supposed to be doing.”

The administration should have started with four or five of the most important agencies, he said, then merged additional functions after they made it work.

Some of these frustrations feed his work, Ray said.

Bea also played a significant role in getting Bradley’s novels into a publishable state.

She proofreads and types his hand-written manuscripts into their computer, which Ray avoids like the plague.

The two shared a healthy banter over his books on a recent afternoon in their parlor.

“We fight over one single word sometimes,” Ray said.

“He talks differently than I do, and I see things and say ‘Oh, no!’” Bea shot back

Ray considers himself lucky to have such a supportive partner, however, especially since Bea said she doesn’t even like this kind of fiction.

“I’m only supporting him until he can hire someone who does,” she joked.

Bea prefers nonfiction and technical manuals for her light reading.

Ray, who grew up in Souix City, Iowa, spent a lot of time camping in the Black Hills of South Dakota in the summertime and used that background to set the plot of “Bradley’s Ghost.”

An outdoorsman in his spare time, he is an avid fisherman and used to hunt, though only for food.

When he retired from his career of civil service in 1999, Ray said writing just came to him.

“One night I just sat down with a pencil and a pad of yellow notebook paper and started writing,” he said.

He said he didn’t do a lot of research, relying instead on his own background and experiences and didn’t spend a lot of time mapping out a plot.

Ray chose a print-on-demand publishing house iUniverse in Lincoln, Neb., and said he has personally sold more than 1,000 copies of “Bradley’s Ghost” at signings and through former colleagues.

More than 170 copies sold from a display at Horseshoe Curve Restaurant, which is close to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Mount Weather facility in e County. The restaurant is also a popular lunch spot for FEMA employees, Ray explained.

In addition to his two novels, Ray has written two non-fiction works.

A short story “The April Fool’s Day Nuclear Incident,” based on a real event, is available in “The Writer’s Net Anthology of Prose,” also from iUniverse.

And “What About You and Me,” a practical guide to surviving chemical and biological attacks, is no longer available, he said.

Ray might, however, incorporate much of the information from that less-successful how-to title in a future novel, he said.

He considers himself fortunate to have worked in the very situations he uses for the background of his novels.

“I’ve had a fascinating career,” he said, “and I’m really enjoying my second one.

“I just can’t believe that starting off as a volunteer civil defense coordinator, I ended up working for the White House.”

“Bradley’s Ghost sells for $17.95 paperback and $27.95 hardback on the Internet at www.amazon.com, www.rayderby.com, and www.iuniverse.com

Books-a-Million and the Winchester Book Gallery will order Bradley’s books upon request.