Walter Harris, whose expertise in systems administration and coding is monopolized by Goldman Sachs during the day, helped me with the details for the National Front’s server room. His sideline as a private pilot was also invaluable, although he points out that like Special Agent Nichols, he is not rated on the G650.
My research assistant, Elizabeth Kelley, worked with meteorologists from the National Weather Service in West Virginia to help me understand the bizarre and quickly changing weather that the state experienced in the days leading up to Hurricane Sandy. Elizabeth unearthed significant climate differences between West Virginia locations very near to one another. While I have made some minor changes for dramatic purposes, my intent in this book was to be as true to the actual weather as possible.
Bridge Day in 2012 was on October 20th, not October 27th, so it preceded the storm by more than a full week. I hope that Bridge Day enthusiasts can forgive me rewriting the timeline to put Bridge Day into the narrative. The proximity of the bridge to the other events in this book made it irresistible.
The communes, cults and compounds described in this book are invented. While I did a great deal of research on environmental protest groups, socialist communes and supremacist groups, I created wholly fictional groups and characters for Binder. Although there are supremacist groups in the region, no real-life analogue to the National Front exists in terms of methods or organization.
West Virginia is sometimes caricatured in the media, but my personal experience of the state has always been one of unfailing hospitality and kindness. It is one of the most beautiful places in the U.S. While I have set some very bad and desperate events in the state, West Virginia residents should note that outsiders perpetrate most of these acts in the book. This is my reading of the history of the state, as well.
I intentionally limited my descriptions of explosive devices and altered some technical details. Please forgive the inaccuracies but understand their intent.
Thanks again to those others who contributed and cannot be named. Any technical errors that remain in Binder are mine alone.
Acknowledgements
My indie writer’s life started when I realized that I could compare over a dozen editing samples before I picked my dream editor. Rebecca Faith Heyman has been that great collaborator for the past two thrillers. Louise Darvid’s painstaking proofreading was called out in several reader reviews of Operator, as was Stef Mcdaid’s exceptionally clean Kindle conversion, and they’ve both reprised their roles for Binder.
Jothan Cashero brought his keen commercial packaging design skills to the book cover for Binder, as he did for Operator.
When I was working on my first thriller eighteen years ago, Jo Greenfield, fresh from finishing her M.F.A. at Columbia and publishing a story in the New Yorker gave me memorable advice on writing, which I rely on to this day.
A Pubslush campaign helped make this book possible. Thanks to my friends from Staples who supported Binder, including the eponymous John McCarthy (from the prologue), Ray Larney, Brad Hurley, Joan Robins Brady and Heather Belaga McLean. Also thanks to some other friends who also made this book possible: Mike Mills, Connie Greenfield, Paul Koulogeorge, Dan Goldstein, the author Seeley James and Stan Chan. And thanks to my family members—Leslie, Jill, Mom, Sumati, Karina and Courtney—who helped support Binder.
Finally, my eternal love and gratitude goes to my wife Michelle, who continues to support my fiction writing as a sideline to teaching and training even when her own two jobs and our two young children make it all seem impossible.
About the Author
After a brief stint as an intelligence analyst, David spent nearly 20 years working with corporate brands. He writes for Forbes, teaches at New York University and loves reading and the outdoors.
Visit David’s profile on Forbes
Visit David’s Amazon author page
Follow David on Twitter
Go back to Contents
Table of Contents
Prologue Wednesday
1 Thursday
2
3 Friday
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13 Saturday
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42 Monday
43
44
45
46
47
Epilogue Five Days Later – Saturday
Sources
Acknowledgements
About the Author