Valiant Deception

The ATB Valiant/Louisiana, an unusual type of oil tanker, is on a peaceful, seven day cruise from Texas to New York City, carrying eighty-five million gallons of gasoline.

After the Arab Spring, former terror regimes are deceiving the world: building schools, feeding the hungry, showing a façade of peace, while enabling…

Tar al Bazid sees his Saudi village ravaged by jets, bombs and bullets. This leads him on a murderous quest for payback. He and his band of seasoned terrorist soldiers attack and board the Valiant off the coast of Miami, with the intention of blowing her up next to the United Nations Complex in New York during a multi-national peace conference. Secrecy is maintained and no demands are put forth, because a plan of deception and misdirection is in the works.

Reverend Tom Stevens is a preacher leading a new religion, teaching “Separate but Equal”, a thinly veiled racist movement gaining major ground in America, violently demonstrating at the U.N.

The terrorists are spotted and reported by Dr. Alex Arzu, a brilliant language professor. Shattered by the murder of his wife and kids, he seeks refuge as a hermit on a small Bahamian Island, only to return to the world a few years later to reveal all he has seen.

Only Charlie Mitchell, a PTSD suffering veteran who is serving aboard the Valiant, and Captain John Sheppard, headstrong commandant of a U.S. Coast Guard station stand in their way.

Michael J Harvey is a forty-nine year old hot rod builder, Army veteran and career seafarer. He is also a voracious reader, having devoured thousands of books in his lifetime. This is his first attempt to cross over to the writing side. This story’s setting is loosely derived from his own experiences at sea.