The Winds of Shamal depicts the use of psychic warfare techniques to counter Islamic fundamentalist militarism. Western governments, tiring of exportation of terrorism to their countries, form a coalition that targets the faith based organization, al Dar. A diverse clandestine group of intelligence agents and independent contractors execute the operation, the Protocol. Through coercion an electronics engineer, Fouad Franklin Hindrix, serves in the Protocol organization to develop a computer driven machine to induce near death experiences. The machine effects the psychological reorientation of abducted militant Islamic clerics. The story draws its power from the historic and current politicization of organized religion and the conflict it engenders. A Ph.D. medicinal chemist, F. D. Reed spent his professional years as a pharmacist, a university professor, a researcher, an inventor and now an author. His research and patents include antibiotic substances, transdermal drug delivery devices and devices for administration of medicinal vapor to the respiratory tract. A scientist and musician, Dr. Reed seeks harmony in the universe and pushes the boundaries of imagination with questions that begin with, "What if...?"