TIME ZONES
by
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Maggie O'Doul is working her paleontological diggings in a remote desert region of New Mexico when she encounters weird happenings. She meets a very strange man named Jack who tries to help her; an elite military assault team that kidnaps her; a top secret research base not even the government knows about; a pair of psychologists who play with her mind; a security chief who tries to kill her; and a puzzle so mystifying she doesn't even know how to begin to understand it, let alone solve it. And when she disappears, every trace of her existence is wiped clean. Maggie reappears in the desert days later and hundreds of miles from her site with no memory of anything and only moments to live. Rescued by a bedraggled hermit who is hardly what he seems, she is given pellets of refined rhodium worth a King's ransom, a new identity, and an escape route to freedom. And that's when the puzzle really becomes confused. Recovering some bones and an odd piece of metal from her cache, she sends them to a friend at the University that excites the world's top scientists and brings a violent government reaction. Police, state troopers, the FBI, the CIA, Army Intelligence, and the National Security Agency are suddenly after Maggie. And Jack again intervenes to save her, but this time he arrives too late. Forces called the Cypol that even he can't control are at work to stop him and his research, and they combine to delay him while Maggie is trapped in an alley by enough firepower to arm a third world country. Fleeing for her life, Maggie falls from a building and is completely paralyzed. Using unheard of technology developed at the research base, Jack heals the unhealable, performs the impossible, and startles the medical profession by reactivating Maggie's bones, spine and reticular activating system. All the while unseen Cypol terrorists are out to kill both of them as Maggie awakens from the nightmarish world of a coma to find herself a whole woman--but the nightmare is just beginning. She is suddenly caught in the midst of antagonists she can't see, fighting a war she can't understand, and facing an outcome she could never have expected. And Maggie demands some answers! For a moment old memories are stirred and nightmarish images of a fiery crash that killed her parents sweep back over her. But there is no time to wonder for the Cypol are after them and Jack employs electromagnetic gravitational technology and quantum physics coupled with Einstein's unsolved Unified Field Theory to affect their escape. Astounded by sights and sounds she cannot understand, Maggie allows Jack to lead her through a maze of intrigue, daring, and subterfuge to thwart the advances of the unseen forces that pursue them. Running from the police, the government, and the fiercest fighting force the world has ever known, they find momentary refuge in a remote mountain cabin where Maggie has a moment to collect her thoughts. And what thoughts! Just who is this man who calls himself Jack, and why is he so interested in her? While Jack disappears for a time she contacts her friend at the University who tells her Jack isn't who he claims to be and that he is really out to kill her. Frightened and defenseless, Maggie manages to escape down the mountain to meet her friend and runs headlong into a double-cross. She is cornered by the Cypol and unknowingly used as bait to lure Jack into an unseen trap. And like clockwork, Jack appears beside her, ready to do battle for her. And Maggie wants to know why he would risk his life to try and save her! Using grid-jumping gravitators and a psychological understanding of the enemy, Jack manages a daring attempt to avoid capture by far superior forces that appear almost as knowledgeable as he. Setting up an ambush, Maggie finds herself fighting for her life and is amazed at her emerging survival instincts. Fighting off Cypol assassins, a maverick bear, and a mounting terror that threatens to engulf her, she allows Jack to lead her into the underground hydro exchange system of a power plant that provides electricity to the valley far below. Driven by tremendous water forces through the pipes, they barely miss being chewed to pieces by powerful rotary blades, nearly drowned in a holding pool, and almost torn apart as they are spewed out through the causeways. And the Cypol are doggedly right behind them! Hiding in an underground grotto formed into the mountain in eons past, Maggie learns some of the strange truths about Jack and moves a step closer to putting the puzzle together. But their respite is short lived and with all Jack's secret hideouts exposed, he is forced to take her to the super-secret research base where Maggie learns more about the strange technologies being developed there under Jack's supervision. But instead of finding answers to her questions, Maggie finds more questions without answers and the puzzle of Jack grows proportionally. Who is he and why has he risked his life several times over to protect her? And where did the primeval instinct of survival she feels come from and the unchecked blood lust that now drives her every move? What happened to the gentle, peace-loving paleontologist who had only been interested in finding a dinosaur bone from the distant past to solidify her professorship tenure? What was happening to Maggie O'Doul? Without explanation, Jack leaves her at the secret base to attend an ultra high-level meeting of a Cabal of a dozen major heads of state where he unveils his strange secret, and why he has promised unheard of technology to the world's super powers in exchange for their wealth to further his research. At the same time, Maggie clandestinely does some research of her own and triggers a series of security alarms that alerts the entire base. And while hiding from those who once tried to rob her memory and leave her in the desert to die, Maggie makes yet another fearful discovery. A discovery that will change her life forever! Suddenly she understands Jack and what is really happening at the research base. She understands what is behind the Cypol's vengeful and irrational hatred. And in learning Jack's real identity, she discovers things about him she loathes. In the process, Maggie comes to understand who she really is and why she's had all those nightmares. Maggie O'Doul, after all, is not really Maggie O'Doul at all! Before she can put the last pieces of the puzzle together she is attacked by a Cypol spy planted in the high-security base. More alone than she has ever been, Maggie must use every ounce of her ingenuity and new-found confidence in her survival capabilities for she has come to understand that if she is to survive, she must do so alone. And in the process, Maggie comes face to face with the strangest and most startling secret of all. But Jack's sudden reappearance complicates the equation and Maggie is torn between the past and the present, between a horrible memory of fear and treachery, and a current feeling of love and compassion. But can Jack live down his reputation and live up to Maggie's new expectations? The climatic finale finds Jack setting a highly complicated trap involving a maze of cubicle combinations, a complex series of gravitational jumps through time and space, and a harrowing penetration of the enemy's stronghold within t
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About the Book
Maggie O'Doul is a professor of paleontology at the University of New Mexico. While searching for Dinosaur bones in the desert uplands far from civilization, she encounters the strangest artifacts she has ever seen. Following a storm that blows away the top layer of sand and dirt from an isolated shelf, she uncovers the greatest mystery of her life, or so she thinks. She has little time to consider her discovery, however, as she finds herself surrounded by military helicopters and a strange man who is a greater mystery than the artifacts. Whisked away to a top secret research base, she is faced with a death sentence that would leave her back in the desert with all brain wave patterns erased and no knowledge of how to survive. She encounters the mysterious man once again, who helps her, then leaves her, but she continues to encounter him again and again and again. She doesn't know him, but he obviously knows her and is bound to keep her safe despite the continuing dangers her discovery forces upon her. Faced with enemies beyond description, with technology beyond her imagination, she runs for her life, all the time trying to figure out who this man is, and why she keeps having recurrent nightmares associated with indescribable violence. And how did this mystery man obtain the technological abilities he shows her? He claims to be a research scientist from that ultra-secret government testing center, but even when he takes her there, she finds the mystery of his identify more complex than imagined and rather than any questions answered, dozens more present themselves. Nor does she understand why so many of the world's major governments have given him a free hand and unlimited funds at developing a response to the Unified Field Theory that baffled even Einstein, yet seems a simple matter to his efforts? And why is everything so top secret that not even the Pentagon is aware of the research being conducted from President-diverted funds? In her plight, she is confronted with unseen terrors, an enemy that can read her mind, and a force that is out to kill her which only the strange man can counter. She allows him to lead her along a terrifying yet intriguing series of events that not only eventually answer all her questions, but uncovers a secret so deeply buried that its mere mention changes her life forever. This is a high-tech adventure story about a woman who thinks she knows who she is, but doesn't; of a man who seems complicated, but isn't; and an enemy so terrible, their power reaches back through most of the history of mankind on Earth. A high-tech, science-fiction, adventure mystery, this story grabs the reader from the first paragraph and forces them to hold on for dear life until its abrupt, suspense-filled ending which leaves the reader wanting more.
About the Author
Del DowDell is a talented writer, speaker and artist. He has written over a dozen fiction books, nearly a dozen non-fiction works, more than two dozen screenplays, and lectured in over 40 states. As a scientific hobbyist and researcher, he has written several volumes on the fallacies of scientific beliefs, such as the Inaccuracy of the Carbon-14 Time Clock, Scientific Refutations of Organic Evolution, The Fallacy of the Geologic Time Scale, and The Big Bang Theory is a Dud. He has also authored several works on Mesoamerica and the Andes Mountains, disproving the old belief that earliest inhabitants of North and South America arrived via a land bridge across the Aleutians. His work on What’s What in the Legal Hut was used by businesses and major corporations to design and implement training programs on legal management methods.
Del is also a talented lecturer, having been invited to speak to and train thousands throughout the country on far ranging subjects from corporate management to self-image psychology. He developed some of the earliest understandings of Behavioral Styles that swept the country in the 1980s, writing several works and holding numerous seminars on the subject.
Currently, Del is involved in the organization and operations of several companies, consults with corporations on management techniques, provides numerous works to help the fledging writer, owns an internet retail sales company, and has begun raising, breeding and selling koi fish.
An avid researcher and trivia buff, all of Del’s works are both scientifically and historically accurate. As a father of seven and a grandfather of 16 and counting, Del’s diverse and copious experiences and credentials show up in his ability to write science-fiction, westerns, contemporary political thrillers, military adventures, and comedic works with equal aplomb.
A former baseball pitcher and architect, Del currently lives with his wife of 40 years in a house he personally designed and they built themselves on a high ridge overlooking a spacious valley in a rural area of Southern Utah.