Seriously, one does not wakeup one morning saying "I am going to be a
terrorist.' It's a growing curve, a series of circumstances that
pushes people to the edge and then pushes them some more until they
fall into that precipice.
As a journalist I gave covered terrorism for the past 35 years and I
was always fascinated by how a person go to such extremes. So I
decided to write a book about it. But I wanted this book to be
something that everyone could read, not just a scholarly work. I
wanted it to be something that the general public could appreciate.
And so Inauguration Day was born.
As I started writing I kept adding layer upon layer of groups and
people involved because in the real world things are never quite as
simple as they are made out to be in the movies.
My characters and most of the events are real people that I have come
across during the many years I lived in the Middle East and reported
from there. Some have been slightly altered to protect their
identities, and the events may have been slightly changed but for the
most part, except the nail-biting finale of the book, most of the
events have happened.