I’m writing a story about kidnapping and the moral dilemma faced by a career diplomat serving as US Ambassador to Pakistan in 2012. The story is fiction but the circumstances and characters are based upon my experience as an economic development specialist working for USAID in 2005 with access to US Embassy personnel and foreign service staff. The story was inspired by an actual and on-going kidnapping of an AID contractor in August of 2011. He was  snatched from his bed in the middle of the night by a criminal gang in the commercial capital of Lahore. The victim was sold to Al Qaeda terrorists who are attempting to exchange his release for that of an Al Qaeda leader being held in Guantanamo Bay. I lived, worked and socialized with this man, a brilliant Harvard economist, doing his part to change the world through service in the developing world. The book will be out next year, brief excerpts will be posted on this blog from time to time, look for them!