Lynn Lipinski - God of the Internet

A deadly and exhilarating game of cat and mouse that has all the makings of an engaging series about fighting terrorists.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Five Stars. God of the Internet is a delightfully frightening, completely realistic fictional depiction of a new face of terrorism.

IndieReader

Five stars. In a real thrill ride of a read, God of the Internetwill grab readers from the very first pages, and keep them obsessively turningall the way through until the very end.

Readers Favorite

Five stars. Lipinski has constructed a thriller based on elements that are intricately intertwined todaythe internet, the family, and terrorism. In this fast paced potboiler, digital derring-do shares page space with familial obligations and international intrigue.

Pacific Book Review

Lynn Lipinski

Majestic Content Los Angeles

For my mother, Rosemary Lipinski, whose love and curiosity inspires me.

Juliana doesn't bother to go into a stall in the ladies' room to hide her tears. Plenty of the female employees in UCLA's Information Studies Department have seen her crying in here before, so why hunch over a toilet seat for the pretense at privacy?

Mahaz, her husband of eighteen years, had humiliated her again. She needs to think, but she just feels like crying. She feels trapped by their marriage, unable to see another path for her life, but equally unable to visualize being with Mahaz for twenty or thirty more years. Hell, she isnt sure she wants to be with him twenty more minutes. At some point this marriageand her lifehas drifted far off course and she is tired of pretending that everything is still going according to plan.

Todays embarrassment came during a meeting with a consultant he'd hired to advise on his Center for Information Technology's social media strategy.

Let me show you some of our past social media efforts, he said. One of the profiles Juliana had set up on a video- and photo-sharing site appeared on the big flat screen mounted to the conference room wall.

Pretty pathetic, huh? Mahaz said. Look at this, only five followers. Its so obvious we dont know what we are doing, right, Juliana? His voice was low and convincing. She had nodded because hed always had this power over her. To persuade her to change her mind, to acquiesce to his wishes, to follow him. And following him was what she had done her whole adult life, an act as routine as breathing or blinking. His certainty used to make her feel protected and safe, but lately it only makes her feel vulnerable and small. A fish swimming in the wake of a shark, pulled along by its force but dangerously exposed.

At forty-six years old, Mahaz Al-Dossari is an exceptionally skilled computer network security specialist and a professor at UCLA. But the biggest feather in his cap is the enviably endowed chair he received, courtesy of His Royal Highness Prince Abdul Fahd bin Aziz, a schoolboy friend. That ensures not just his long-term employment, but also an overflowing coffer of money for his research. Mahaz uses the money to fund his Center for Information Technology at UCLA, where he hired her as his communications manager four years ago.

She once heard Mahaz describe her job to a colleague as a perk he had earned for bringing such a big donor to the university.

I consider it another way to supplement my income. I put her in communications where I figured she could do the least harm, he said to a visiting professor from Egypt. The other man laughed and looked at Juliana like she was a prize calf at the fair. Back then, she told herself that Mahaz was only showing off for his friend, and that he hadnt intended to hurt her. Rationalizations that shepherded her through the dinner and the next day without confrontation. But his words still stay with her years later, growing a toxic mix of resentment, shame and rage like poisonous mushrooms in a terrarium.

If she were totally honest with herself, the pain of those words stems from how they expose her deepest fear that she is an imposter in her job. A college dropout, Juliana wishes she could be as confident about her work as she is about being a mother. But the bottom line is that she has more experience as a housewife than in the working world. Shed put in serious effort to tip the balance, taking classes on marketing and public relations at UCLA Extension, and joining the local chapter of the Public Relations Society to beef up her skills. But some days, she feels the deep chasm between her and the bevy of young, educated professionals who stream through Mahazs office having deep conversations on intricate information security matters she knows little about.

Funny how life works. She had started talking to Mahaz about finding a job because she wanted out of the San Fernando Valley homeroom mom crowd. In wealthy and competitive Sherman Oakswhere bumping into pop stars like Miley Cyrus or Britney Spears could happen at the nail salon or the organic farmers marketpeople were constantly trying to outdo one another. Whether it was private school tuition that cost more per year than Harvard University or equestrian lessons or birthday party movie screenings in private home theaters, the relentless beat of one-upmanship had worn her out. Juliana had thought working in an office would be a sanctuary from it, but the escape turned out to be an even swap of one set of problems for another.

She daintily tries to dab her eyes dry without smearing her mascara, all that was left of the make-up she had applied this morning. She grips the granite countertop with one hand and looks in the mirror. The face that looks back at her could be her ghost. Pale lips and cheeks punctuated by her red nose and dark, deep circles under watery eyes. She studies herself in the harsh light for a moment before closing her eyes so she no longer has to see the humiliation in them.

A toilet flushes. She thought she was alone. She blinks and tries to take a deep breath but she only shudders with the effort.

Allyn Carriaga, one of her husbands teaching assistants, traipses her way to the sink with her eyes on the floor. She is avoiding eye contact, Juliana thinks. Shes embarrassed for me. Or by me.

Juliana pats the skin under her eyes with the rough paper towel while Allyn rubs soap on her hands with a surgeons thoroughness under a stream of running water.

Im sure it will get better, Allyn says, finally meeting her eyes in the mirror. I pray for your son all the time.

My son? Juliana is startled by the sudden intimacy, even though she knows that her seventeen-year-old son Omars hydrocephalus, better known as water on the brain, is no secret among the staff and faculty. Sure, let Allyn think that she was crying about Omar. There is certainly enough sorrow and pain there to last a lifetime. Shed cried a thousand rivers over him in emergency rooms and hospital beds. But on a daily basis, she blinks back those tears and does everything she can to make her sons life as normal as possible. And today is one of those wonderful, ordinary days, with Omar happily at school, doing the ordinary things that teenagers do.

What does it matter what Allyn thinks anyway? These co-workers arent confidantes or friends or even lunch buddies, just fellow travelers in a shared workplace. Let her leave the restroom and plop down at her cubicle and tell the other research assistants that poor Juliana is sobbing in the restroom about Omar. Better that than the more salacious gossip about the health of her marriage, how Mahaz treats her, and why she puts up with it. These twenty-something graduate students know nothing about the compromises you have to make in marriage and life. The messiness of life is still theoretical to them, so they can afford to shake their heads and proclaim theyd never stay with a man who cheated on them.