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After filling in the outline a bit more, I’ve got a bit better flow for the story, but more importantly, it’s become really obvious where the holes in the story are, or where the potential holes will be.

• Daniel helps at a wreck, sees a man with a fatal injury walk away
• We meet Susan, a right wing Christian blogger
• Daniel investigates the strange life of Hendriks, the dead man
• Scene with Susan, something religious
• Batarel stalks Daniel
• We meet Jeff Frankel, a crazy old Viet Nam vet
• Daniel meets Susan
• Jeff arrives in DC
• Susan decides to help Daniel
• We meet Jack Harris, FBI. He tracks Daniel as a suspected terrorist.
• Daniel and Susan go on the run
• Jeff rescues Daniel and Susan from Batarel
• …
• Daniel films the meeting in Denver
• Our heroes meet Uriel
• …
• Susan gets a copy of the database
• Daniel and Jack kill Batarel
• Jack changes sides
• …
• Jack takes Daniel, Susan and Jeff to Iraq
• Jeff meets with Mullah Hassan Mohammad, the keeper of the lost gospel
• Demons attack the mosque (to prevent the gospel from getting out?)
• Our heroes escape from Iraq
• Demons kill Daniel’s family
• Susan publishes her proof
• The media runs with it, and public opinion wakes up to the immortal threat
• Daniel is recruited to lead a force to combat the demons

Okay, so several questions present themselves right off the bat.

• Why do Daniel and Susan meet?
• Why does the FBI think Daniel might be a terrorist?
• Why do Daniel and Susan go on the run?

There’s lots more, of course, but let’s just deal with those for now.

The first question, the one with Susan and how she meets Daniel, I’m inclined to discover on my own through the writing. It’s not really necessary that I know that before I start, and sometimes really nifty stuff arises out of the composition of a piece that you didn’t have any idea about in the planning stages. So I think I’ll wait until I meet Susan myself and see where she’s likely to go that might intersect with Daniel.

The next question I find much more interesting, mostly because while the idea of Daniel being a fugative is nothing new, the original book was written four years before 9/11 and the whole terrorism angle and bringing Jack into Revelation as a FBI Special Agent is very new. And yet, it also fits, giving these characters the basis for a deeper relationship based on trust and shared experience that will come in handy in Crusade, the next book in the trilogy.

So why does the FBI think Daniel is a terrorist? Well, to start with, he does fit the profile. He’s a first generation American, born to fundamentalist immigrant parents. He’s highly educated, possessing an MD, but instead works as a paramedic, far below his “station” and in a position where he has access to key infrastructure but draws little attention. He also just abandoned his entire life and moved 3,000 miles away, living a largely solitary and anonymous life in a new city. He’s established no social contacts and doesn’t do much other than work and brood.

So to an outward obvserver, he looks kinda Unabomber. But there has to be something more. What draws their attention to Daniel in the first place? Fitting the profile is one thing, but someone has to care enough to make the comparison.

The obvious answer is that he draws attention to himself at the accident. He was the 911 caller, and he did work the scene before the on-duty paramedics got there. But that either makes him an idiot or a hero, depending on how you look at it. I’m thinking he needs to freak out at the accident after he sees Hendriks/Batarel walk away. He needs to draw attention to himself and rant a bit about the walking dead guy, get the cops to notice him. Maybe even resist arrest himself. Then the cops issue an APB, the FBI notices, and Jack gets tapped with the investigation. Yeah, that might work.

Or will it? (cue Drama Prairie Dog)