Brad Taylor - All Necessary Force

ALSO BY BRAD TAYLOR

One Rough Man

FORCE

A PIKE LOGAN THRILLER

DUTTON

Published by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.); Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England; Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd); Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd); Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India; Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd); Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published by Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First printing, January 2012

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Copyright 2012 by Brad Taylor

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Taylor, Brad, 1965

All necessary force : a Pike Logan thriller / by Brad Taylor.

p. cm.

EISBN: 9781101559901

1. Special forces (Military science)United StatesFiction. 2. Special operations (Military science)Fiction. I. Title.

PS3620.A9353A45 2012

813.6dc22 2011031214

Printed in the United States of America

Set in Sabon LT Std

Designed by Leonard Telesca

PUBLISHERS NOTE

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To Sergeant Richard Thomas, United States Army Special Forces,
KIA Cambodia, 1970, and to the men of MACV-SOG,
unsung heroes of the original Long War

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001

Joint Resolution of Congress, September 18, 2001

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche

April 1970
Cambodia
Target Kilo 8: The Fishhook

S

lithering the last fifty meters on his belly, Staff Sergeant Chris Hale reached the edge of the depression where the engine noise was coming from. Slowly parting the jungle growth to his front, he had his first clear view of the hollow. The sight caused his gut to clench.

Milling around as if they were about to start a parade were at least fifty North Vietnamese Army regular soldiers. Behind them was an elaborately camouflaged structure that looked like a large lanai that Hale had seen on his R&R to Hawaii, complete with wicker chairs and a ceiling fan lazily turning. Which explained the noise. There was a generator somewhere close by.

Hale continued to scan, peering intently at another intricately camouflaged structure about a hundred meters away. Trying to stitch together what he was seeing, like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, he realized it wasnt a building, but a helicopter. A Soviet Mi-4. He couldnt believe it. Whats more, he knew nobody at MACV-SOG headquarters in Danang would believe it. He inched up his camera, hoping the lens was good enough to make out the chopper from this distance.

After a couple of snaps, he turned back to the lanai, now full of NVA officers. The mother lode, he thought. Looking closer, he saw they werent NVA, but something else. They were taller than Vietnamese, and wore a different uniform. Shit, theyre Chinese. He watched them all turn at the same time and look toward the rear of the room, where another man entered dressed in civilian clothes. With a start, Hale saw he was a Caucasian. A fucking Russian. No way will the FOB buy this. Hed heard many strange tales about what recon teams had seen across the fence inside Cambodia or Laos, including Chevy station wagons with Texas plates or Soviet armor, but this compound was taking the cake.

The Caucasian walked to the edge of the lanai and stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the activity before him in the hollow. Hale snapped as many pictures of him as he could, no more than thirty meters away. When the man returned to the group, Hale continued to photograph, fired up with the thought of providing evidence of both Chinese and Russian advisors helping the NVA in supposedly neutral Cambodia. When he figured hed pushed his luck enough, he slithered backward to Houng, the Montagnard native hed left pulling security to his rear. After a brief exchange of hand and arm signals, they began creeping back to the Remain Overnight Position, or RON, where the rest of the five-member team waited.

They crept very slowly, covering only ten or fifteen meters before stopping to listen. Such movement required extreme patience, as Hale fought the urge to stretch the fifteen meters into fifty. They had to cover only about a football field, but it took them close to an hour to reach the team.

Moving inside the small security perimeter of the team, Hale signaled his one-one, Sergeant Dickie Thomas. Second in command, Thomas carried the team radio, their only lifeline if anything went wrong.

Thomas crept up and whispered, What about Cummings?

Specialist Cummings was the only other American on the team. The remaining four men were Montagnard mercenaries recruited for their fighting prowess and their fierce hatred of the Vietnamese. All belonged to the Ground Studies Branch of the U.S. Militarys Studies and Observation Group, more commonly called SOG. The cover name made it sound like they were a bunch of scientists out taking soil samples to improve the South Vietnamese rice crop. In reality, they were Special Forces soldiers whod volunteered for top-secret cross-border reconnaissance missions into the countries neighboring Vietnam to develop intelligence on enemy movements down the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Specialist Cummings was new to SOGs Command and Control Souththe element responsible for Cambodiaand was accompanying Hales team as an orientation before assuming one-one duties of his own on another team. Hale had forgotten he was there. He motioned Cummings over.

Speaking in a whisper, he told the two men what he had found. As expected, they were skeptical, which aggravated him. How was he going to convince the boss at CCS if his own team doubted him?

I got fucking pictures. Im telling you, theres a head-shed meeting going on between the NVA and a bunch of foreign advisors.

Thomas grabbed Hales arm as his voice began to rise.

Shhh. Jesus, remember where we are?