At the "Munich Massacre" during the summer Olympics in Munich, Germany in 1972, the Palestinian group, Black September, kidnapped and killed eleven Israeli athletes. This ushered in the "Age of Terror" according to declassified documents from the FBI, CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Defense. The eight members of Black September planned to trade the Israelis for 234 Palestinians being held prisoner in Israel. The attempt by German authorities to rescue the Israeli athletes culminated in the deaths of the nine remaining Israeli athletes and five of the members of Black September. William Smith, an undocumented loner with an obscure past from Wild Horse Canyon, Kentucky is recruited by a retired CIA agent, Simons Grebel to travel into Egypt, Syria, and Jordan to serve as the eyes and ears of his friend, Yitzhak Kahan, the Assistant Director of Mossad. While he is in Heathrow Airport in London, Bill Smith changes his plans and bribes two members of the airline staff in order to meet Khalisah Amtullah al-Saud and her brother Faisal al-Saud, members of the Saudi Arabian royal family who are returning home to Riyadh from Oxford University. Khalisah and Faisal invite Bill to visit them in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Khalisah develops strong feelings for him and helps him uncover the money trail where her father, Prince Faisal, the Minister of Finance is sending funds to the extremist schools and mosques that adhere to the Wahhabi form of Islam. Bill Smith thwarts an attempt on the life of Prince Faisal by extremists and teaches Khalisah to drive with her brother accompanying them. She intends to enroll in medical school in Europe and leave Saudi Arabia since she cannot tolerate the social system there where women are almost invisible. Later, Bill meets Rhonda Gialetti, an actress from the U. S. that Prince Faisal is attracted to. She owes the IRS a large amount in back taxes and hopes that Faisal will help pay her debt. She takes a message out for Bill about Faisal's computer, a Honeywell model that is the first one to fit in a small room and to be mass marketed. She goes back to the U. S. and Prince Faisal follows her and Bill leaves Riyadh. Khalisah wants to go and Bill takes her with him. They travel to Blue Earth, Minnesota where Bill's fiancee, Rebecca Lundstrom is living with her mother. Khalisah meets Dr. Matthew Avery and he informs her that the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota is opening a new medical school that year. She realizes that she will only be ninety minutes away from Bill Smith and she enrolls there. Prince Faisal insists that Rhonda Gialetti convert to Islam but is persuaded to marry her in a civil ceremony in the U. S. while visiting Khalisah. In the USSR, Grigori Mostorev, a sniper from WW II, is recruited by the arms merchant, Dmitri Sheshanoff, to eliminate Isaac Ben-Chaim, born Josef Storchev, in Leningrad. Ben-Chaim has set up a network of informants in and around Moscow. The most important intelligence for the Israelis concerns the type of arms systems the Arab states can buy from the Soviet Union. Anwar Al-Sadat, the President of Egypt, wants the latest fighter planes from the USSR but President Leonid Brezhnev will not sell them to him, so Sadat buys SAMS instead. Sadat continues the War of Attrition against Israel but he builds up the Egyptian Army to retake the Sinai Peninsula occupied by the Israeli Army in the Six Day War in 1967. Grigori Mostorev fails to kill Ben-Chaim who disappears, leaving Bill Smith to take over for him. Bill Smith marries Rebecca Lundstrom and moves to Helsinki, Finland, close to the Soviet Union to run Ben-Chaim's network.
About the Author: Author Don Eudy lives in Lakeland, Florida with his wife, Ann. He has created the Thunder in Zion series, consisting of three books: Thunder in the Negev, Thunder in Deutschland, and Thunder in Sinai. They cover the period from the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (known as the Six Day War) to the Munich Massacre in 1972, and the series concludes with the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Originally from El Dorado, Arkansas, the author enjoys developing characters from the South to interact with those modeled on people he has met in the many countries he has traveled in. The many historical figures that appear in these titles are portrayed as accurately as possible, although none of the dialogue they are portrayed as using is real. When not at his computer, the author may be found gardening, taking long walks, or investigating the gourmet dish his wife has just prepared.