Photobytes by Robert Weber

About the book

Photobytes is an action/suspense story set in up-scale Newport Beach, California.

Embedded on a Coast Guard Cutter, AP reporter, Luke Stockwell covers the interception of two North Koreans attempting to destroy the atomic energy plant at San Onofre, California. The story, the biggest of his career, is spiked by Washington for political reasons.

On the heels of his disappointment, Luke gets word that his photojournalist brother Matt is missing on a helicopter over the Mediterranean. When he picks up a videocassette from Matt at the local post office, he learns that an FBI agent tried to intercept it earlier that morning.

Luke enlists Alison Huntley, a digital photo whiz, to convert the cassette to a CD and to print a set of photos. They show rogue CIA agent Frank Drake hiring an assassin to kill Israeli Prime Minister Sharon. During dinner with Alison, Luke receives a call from his editor to cover the stabbing of the postal clerk. Drake fails to kill Luke and Alison outside the restaurant, but tries again at her apartment and shoots her roomate by mistake. Luke invites Alison to spend the night on his yacht, the Shutterbug. Drake boards the boat in the middle of the night and is wounded in the ensuing shootout and escape.

Drake tries again and fails to recover the photos and kills Luke and Alison. After he kills a policeman, a door-to-door manhunt forces him to hide in a vacant house. He escapes to the Shutterbug and forces Luke and Alison to take him to Mexico. Luke runs the boat into the surf and fights Drake on the beach. Luke kills Drake. A mysterious helicopter lands, picks up Drake's body and flies out to sea. The Shutterbug is about to crash onto a rocky reef when Luke rescues Alison from a Coast Guard helicopter.

To prevent an international embarrassment, Washington spikes Luke's second shot at a Pulitzer Prize story.

About the author

Robert Weber, a retired research engineer, worked thirty-one years for what is now a division of the Boeing Company. He led the development of the inertial navigation system for the first Minuteman ICBM. He served as managment consultant to the UK Royal Navy Polaris program, and as a technical consultant to the US Navy for the Los Angeles SSN688 Class Submarine program.

An Air Force Navigator in WWII, he flew 36 combat missions in the Pacific theater, earning six Air Medals and a Distinguished Flying Cross.

He holds a California Community College Teaching Credential, a Bachelor and Master of Science for Engineering and a Certificate in Business Management from UCLA.

As a student at Orange Coast College, he won their screenplay contest, and has won the Orange County Register Dreamscape short story contest.

He lives with his wife in Newport Beach, California, where Photobytes is set.