Countdown at College Station by Harry Haines

About the book

Dr. Kendall H. Evans, a professor at Texas A&M University, is on top of the world. He, his wife, and two teenage daughters appear to be an exemplary All-American family. And his job, especially, couldn't be better when he wins the nation's top award for nuclear engineering design. Then things start to fall apart and he experiences a series of personal attacks so severe that he is overwhelmed by clinical depression. Ken tries to find a new life by fleeing to a small Caribbean Island named St. Martin. He meets Mary Jacobs, a pianist from New York.

Barbara Beafatah, a young TAMU educated woman leads a terrorist attack on an American Embassy in Africa. She collaborates with Usama din Baden, the man who Time Magazine calls "mastermind of the most ruthless terrorist group in the world." The Islamics become objects of a massive worldwide anti-terrorist search lead by the CIA. Beafatah looks for a remote place to hide and plot the escalation of terrorism that will include nuclear weapons. She flies to St. Martin because her co-conspirator's nephew, Freddie, is there to hide her.

Each chapter includes a third scene, which gives brief information about the worldwide activities involved in fighting terrorism. The three separate venues inexorably crisscross, interact, and finally combine as the novel progresses to a single scene and its climax, the Countdown at College Station.

In events leading to the countdown, the antagonists steal four H-bombs, try to set one off in Dallas. When the bomb fails to detonate, they move to College Station, kidnap Ken and Mary, and attempt to force Ken to help with the bomb's detonation system. Ken refuses and helps the CIA capture the antagonists and the bombs. It appears the story is over until it is learned that one of the bombs is missing. Ken finds it ticking with only ten seconds left. This is the countdown, when Ken figures how to defuse the bomb.

About the author

Harry Haines is an "Aggie," a college professor and administrator who spent twenty-one years working for the Texas A&M University System. He owns a Piper Twin Comanche, actually flew it to the island of St. Martin, and even convinced the IRS to allow the trip as a necessary business expense. While this is his first novel, he is the author of fifteen non-fiction publications with sales approaching one million copies. Now a full-time writer, Dr. Haines lives in Canyon, Texas and is working on a second novel set in another college town. He is married and has three children, one of whom is a graduate of Texas A&M.