When terrorists crashed a plane full of people and fuel into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Greenville native William “Billy” Webster was riding in a taxi along the Potomac River as a fireball exploded into the air.
Webster had landed at Washington National Airport only minutes earlier – about the same time as terrorists crashed a commercial airliner into the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The north tower had been hit about 16 minutes before.
A fourth plane bound for the White House or the U.S. Capitol was soon intentionally crashed by passengers in rural Pennsylvania.
But Webster hailed a cab at the airport just as he normally did when flying into Washington, D.C. He and his fellow airline passengers knew nothing of the attacks that would kill more than 3,000 people. Neither did he and the cab driver, as they unknowingly watched American Airlines Flight 77 strike the Pentagon.
Webster saw the destruction only when he arrived at his hotel.
“From that moment forward, everything in our lives changed. There’s not an event in my lifetime that was more impactful,” he says. “How did any of us process that? Honestly, I don’t know.”
William Webster of Greenville was in a cab near the Pentagon when it was attacked by terrorists on 9/11. He also worked in Washington, D.C., with President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley; owned and sold businesses; and had a surprise encounter in the wilderness. His first novel, “Rockets’ Red Glare,” was published this spring.
The shock of that day, along with a mountaintop encounter on a day long before, intertwined to become a story that percolated in Webster’s head for years. The result, his novel “Rockets’ Red Glare,” was released this spring by Blackstone Publishing.
“Rockets’ Red Glare” is Webster’s fictional vision of what another attack on American soil might look like.
The thriller follows Sage Mendiluze, a Marine Corps veteran and tribal police deputy from the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.
When a sniper murders two wilderness guides at a campsite, and then more visitors to national parks, Mendiluze hikes the rugged backcountry with his Australian shepherd, Peak, to foil a terrorist plot in time for the Fourth of July.
On the day of the actual terror attacks, Webster says he watched from the cab as the deadly plane descended and disappeared behind the Pentagon.
“A huge fireball appeared from above the walls. We felt the concussive blast. It moved our taxi,” he explains.
Five minutes later, law enforcement was out in force. “I was one of the last cabs across Memorial Bridge before they shut down D.C.,” he says.
Webster – a law school graduate, entrepreneur, outdoorsman and athlete – got his first taste of Washington, D.C., in his early 30s during a White House Fellowship with President George H.W. Bush.
When Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992, Webster served on his transition team; became Chief of Staff for U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley (former governor of South Carolina); and then served as Assistant to the President and Clinton’s Director of Scheduling and Advance.
Webster speaks highly of Clinton as well as Riley, a family friend.
“I don’t know a more honorable man dedicated to his state and education than Dick Riley,” he says.
And he describes Clinton as “extraordinarily likable” and “charming, in a genuine way,” someone who made everyone feel like they were the only person in the room.
During his years working for Clinton, Webster managed travel, including scheduling Air Force One, Marine One, food, communications, and the White House Secret Service, along with dozens of other logistical duties and details.
“It’s easy to over-glorify. But it was my job. I’d been a business guy most of my life, and a lot of the business experience was applicable,” says Webster, whose family once owned 27 Bojangles franchises in South Carolina.
Webster left the White House before Clinton’s second term and co-founded Advance America, Cash Advance Centers Inc. He sold the business in 2011. Since then, he has been on the boards of several finance and after-market auto parts companies.
Webster’s experiences – especially 9/11 – were fodder for “Rockets’ Red Glare.”
While the terror attacks are a shared national tragedy, Webster’s second inspiration took place in the mountains of the Wind River Range in Wyoming (home to his fictional hero).
Nestled in the mountain range is the National Outdoor Leadership School, a 60-year-old nonprofit that teaches wilderness and survival skills.
“The curriculum is life-changing,” says Webster, who took part in a 30-day mountaineering course in the 1980s.
At the end of the course, student survivalists are sent into the wilderness with instructions on where to meet guides who will return them to camp. Groups of five students are given six or seven days to make the trip – all while fasting and without the benefit of hiking trails.
On their fourth day, Webster says his group was “quite lost.”
“And it was my fault,” he acknowledges. “So, these other four people were tired and hungry and super pissed.”
Unexpectedly and fortuitously, the group left the dense forest in the mountains to find a meadow full of bleating sheep.
The man standing among them had jet-black hair, weathered skin and high cheekbones.
“He had the most beautiful green eyes I’d ever seen. They were sage colored. Not emerald green. Not hazel green,” Webster explains.
“He had an aura, a composure that was striking. He’s tens of miles away from anybody, tending the flock, six or seven months by himself, exposed to weather and sun and whatever the wilderness throws at him.
“And he didn’t speak a word of English.”
He was Basque. Webster surmises that the herdsman had fled persecution, like many from his region in Northern Spain.
“He sat down in the dirt and, with his dusty finger, drew a line across the maps to where we needed to go. And we left. I never saw that man again,” Webster says.
“But he never left my consciousness.”
William “Billy” Webster of Greenville worked on a story for years – in his mind. But these days, he’s traveling the country to promote his novel – now both written and published – “Rockets’ Red Glare.”
The herdsman returns as Sage Mendiluze – on the pages of “Rockets’ Red Glare.”
When Webster and his wife, Teresa, moved back to his childhood home in Greenville during COVID, he says the change of pace and place allowed him to write the novel, which he hopes will become a trilogy.
Help also came from co-writer, co-editor and Los Angeles Times bestselling author Dick Lochte, who has penned 14 crime novels, three co-authored with Al Roker of the “Today Show.”
“I was raised in Greenville. My parents were raised in Greenville,” Webster says. “There was something about being back home. I think it’s easier to write when there’s a sense of calmness in your brain. And Greenville gives me that.”
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Novel Approach – Debut Thriller Is Latest Chapter In Local Entrepreneur’s Novel Career Path