Inoculum

Alec Alton and Ameena Al-Amine are members of an elite RCMP National Security team investigating a multi-ethnic drug trafficking syndicate. Together, they trace the illicit activity to an Afghan terrorist financing network. As they follow the evidence, they unearth evidence that the CIA had a hand in one of the worst atrocities in history. Forced to travel in the most surveilled region on the planet, they travel off-the-grid moving from Central Asia to the Middle East in search of truth. They meet high level informants, former key members of the mujaheddin, who each hold a piece of buried history. With a traitorous CIA operative behind the rise of al-Qaida hunting after them, they must rely on their covert training and specialized techniques. Running out of time, they must retrieve the elusive Purple Book, an embodiment of the CIA's mea culpa, thought long destroyed during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. 

Inoculum explores themes of terrorism, drug trafficking, geo-politics and corruption. It lightly walks the reader through the history of regional conflicts, espionage and the security agencies, ultimately connecting the exploitation of the Muslim republics in the Soviet Union during the ’70s to the tragic events of 9/11.  

A thrilling and moving portrayal of how the western world has helped propagate the myth about the rise of Islamic radicalization. Inoculum is at once introspective and critically contrived. It is for everyone and anyone who craves answers to the some of the biggest questions in our recent history.

Bio:

Archie Alafriz is a retired veteran of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's federal police force. Fourteen years of his service was in the National Security Program, where he was a subject matter expert on anti-terrorist resourcing. He was the team lead in Canada's landmark terrorist fund-raising conviction against the LTTE in 2010. Archie had investigated a myriad of listed terrorist entities like the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Hamas, Hezbollah, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), Mujahideen-e Khalq, Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, Jemaah Islamiyah and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). He is a fellow at the DKI-Asia Pacific Center of Security Studies (APCSS), a US military hosted policy analysis facility in Hawaii. Archie worked with global academics from the RAND Corporation, the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. He has provided threat finance commentary for The Wall Street Journal. Archie was responsible for developing financing risk strategies in advance of 2010 Vancouver Olympics, created the Joint Financial Intelligence Group and the terrorist courier intervention program.

His first novel uses a fiction platform to narrate his analysis of the significant historical events that led to 9-11. He explains how "fake news" had been the tradecraft of security agencies for eons. Follow the money, he says, it always tells the real story. It is true that one’s terrorist is another's freedom-fighter. He says that in many cases, labels introduce prejudice and colour to our perception, invoking strong emotions that prevent us from seeing the marginalized, the disenfranchised and the mentally compromised. Archie wrote this story in hopes of diminishing our fears and opening our hearts to compassion.