Operation 1420 E-BOOK

On patrol in the Persian Gulf testing new surveillance gear, a secret team aboard the destroyer USS John Young uncovers an al Qaeda plot to snatch Kashmiri youth and train them as highly skilled techno-bombers to attack security, financial and air traffic computer systems around the world.

The saga begins in 1989 with the first meeting of the al Qaeda Shura Council in Pakistan where Osama bin Laden and other key members of al Qaeda discuss and launch scores of terrorist initiatives and sow the seeds of the organization across the globe. One of the actions taken by the Council is to launch their most complicated and destructive plan – code named Operation 1420.

Leveraging the just-emerging international technology crisis, later known as Y2K, the Council sets in motion an expansive strategy for intercepting millions of lines of computer systems code and contaminating them with al Qaeda modules designed to disrupt normal business operations at the whim of al Qaeda leadership.

Operation 1420 is driven by actual events while portraying the recruitment, training and deployment of some of the brightest and most motivated youth of the Kashmir region. The story tracks them and their mission over an 11 year period – their journey intersects often with the voyages of the USS Young on its many tours to the Persian Gulf area from its home port of San Diego.

Intrigue, adventure, treachery, suspense, secrecy and even romance are the hallmarks of Operation 1420. In portraying an al Qaeda plan that unnerves even the most confident of terrorism authorities, the tale knits together otherwise unconnected real events, while wending its way through the countries, cities and locales foremost in today's headlines of international terrorist activity.