Action Adventure Books Archives - AMERICAN PRAETORIANS

Enemy of My Enemy Chapter 1

Night was falling fast over the rugged hills as Shamil Mashadov took a knee under the short, scrubby pine and looked back at his little strike force. The fifty men were strung along the side of the mountain behind him, following the narrow goat path in single file. They blended in well, especially as the light failed. Much of that was thanks to the brand-new camouflage that the Emir had gotten them; the pixelated tan and green was every bit as effective as the American OCP, particularly amid the scrub and short trees of Paktika Province. Most of the men behind him, except for Dilawar Safi, his Pashtun guide, were fellow Chechens, warriors of the Aswad al Islam. They were a long way from home, but what they would do tonight would be worth it. Turning back toward their objective, he lowered the night vision goggles mounted to his helmet and scanned the valley below. The Americans had said that they would be gone from this part of Afghanistan months before, but, infuriatingly, they still had yet to withdraw. Tonight, Mashadov and his brothers would teach the infidels that they should have fled long ago. He lifted the encrypted Russian

SOBs – Some Choose Hell

Some Choose Hell is the 9th Soldiers of Barrabas story, and takes the SOBs to South Africa. South Africa in 1985, when apartheid is alive and well. This time, they are hired to protect Bishop Toto, the new black Bishop of Johannesburg. What they don’t know is that they’re intended to be patsies. The South Africans are intent on assassinating the bishop, even as they’ve invited the SOBs in to protect him. It gets more complicated than that; by the time Barrabas, Nanos, Hatton, and Bishop arrive in South Africa, the real Bishop Toto has already been imprisoned by BOSS (the Bureau of State Security), and an impostor put in his place. The impostor immediately begins making all sorts of concessions to the white government, sowing discontent, which will peak with his assassination, after which the real Bishop Toto is to be quietly eliminated. Needless to say, the SOBs interfere, finding themselves at odds with their “employers.” There’s a significant side plot in this one, namely that of Claude Hayes. It had been revealed in earlier books that Hayes spent some time in Africa after Vietnam, though in more of a revolutionary role than the more common anti-Communist mercenary role

The Guns of Kill or Capture

Yes, it is time for a guns post again. What kind of hardware shows up in the seventh outing for Brannigan’s Blackhearts? The Blackhearts get to pick their loadout before insert this time, as opposed to some of their previous adventures. But with the AO being in South America, they’ve still got to find weaponry that will, if not blend in in South America, at least be compatible for ammo resupply. Wade selects the IWI ACE 52 for their rifles. The ACE is an updated version of the Galil, and the ACE 52 is chambered in 7.62×51. It’s been adopted by several South American special operations forces, including in Argentina.

Kill or Capture Chapter 1

Special Agent Vito Castiglione looked up from the spotting scope as the door opened behind him. Special Agent Cara Hernandez walked into the room and stood next to him, peering out through the black mesh laid over the gap in the curtains. “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping eyes on the objective?” she asked. “Nobody’s budged out of that place in the last thirty-six hours,” Castiglione said dismissively. “We’ve got the whole place tied up tight. Besides, have you seen the pictures of this guy? I don’t think we really have much to worry about.” The fact that he was admiring the view presented by the willowy, olive-skinned Special Agent next to him was beside the point. She was much more interesting to look at than the dull, expensive house across the street. She rolled her eyes at him, exasperated. He just leered back. “Yes, I have seen the photos,” she said. “Still, you should at least pretend to be taking this warrant seriously.” “What’s to take seriously right now?” Castiglione replied. “He’s a pasty-white billionaire wanted for bribery, money laundering, and influence peddling. He’s hardly Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah. The whole point of putting an Enhanced SWAT team on him

SOBs – Eye of the Fire

Since I’m working on Brannigan’s Blackhearts #7 – Kill or Capture, I’ve been back to the SOBs series for some reading. Which is when I realized that I haven’t written up the last few I’ve read. So, here is Eye of the Fire. Eye of the Fire has a couple of things going on. The mission is an assassination in Cuba. But the target isn’t a Communist official or guerrilla leader. He’s an Argentinian known only as “Colonel D,” a torturer-for-hire who has spent decades finding inventive ways of making Communists die in agony throughout Latin America. And, coincidentally, he’s also been employed by the CIA. This makes him valuable to several people. Jessup, “The Fixer” hires the SOBs to take him out in order to keep him from burning his contacts with the Agency. Barrabas isn’t having any of it to start with; he says he’s a soldier, not an executioner. But the mission isn’t the only thread in this book. There are a couple of others, that make things much more interesting.

I Got A Book Bomb!

What’s a Book Bomb? It’s when The International Lord of Hate, New York Times Bestselling Author Larry Friggin’ Correia asks his fans (who are legion) to go out and buy a book. It gives the target a good sales boost. In this case, he’s pushing Escalation. I’m extremely grateful for this. Larry’s a friend and a great guy, author of the Monster Hunter International, Grimnoir, and Forgotten Warrior series, and one that I’ve gotten to write in, the Dead Six Trilogy. This one isn’t just for me, though. It’s a Double-Barrelled Book Bomb. Larry’s bombing me and Jim Curtis, author of Rimworld: Militia Up. Jim’s a retired naval aviator and another great guy. He’s been there and seen things. I got to meet him at Life, The Universe, and Everything a couple years back, and some of the arc of Holding Action came out of conversations with him. Here’s the blurb on Militia Up: It was supposed to be a simple contract for a couple of months of security services off world, but the devil’s in the details. Tight Bridge Technologies hired Ethan Fargo and his militia to guard their power stations on the planet Endine against mob unrest and sabotage. When

4th of July Promo!

So, James Rosone, the author of the World War III, Red Storm, and now the Second American Civil War series (why yes, we write about very similar stuff), has put together a group promo on Bookfunnel for the 4th of July. James and I write similar stuff, and he offered to bring a bunch of other thriller authors on board. Since I just ran a KDP Countdown on Escalation, and I’m currently working on outlining Brannigan’s Blackhearts #7, I threw Kill Yuan in there. So, if you haven’t picked that one up (it seems like quite a few people haven’t, since it was originally a complete stand-alone), you can get the ebook this week for only $0.99! And you can add the Audible version (yes, this is one of two of my books on audio; if more people buy it, I might be able to get some more done) for free when you buy the ebook. A twofer! A Warrior Without A War Slowly Dies But a warrior looking for a war should be careful what he wishes for. Dan Tackett feels like he’s on a downward spiral, and has been ever since his wife died. But he should have known that

Holding Action Chapter 1

On the ground, at night, Germany didn’t look all that different from Slovakia. The differences lay in details that might not have been all that readily apparent to someone without our recent experience. Aside from a dog barking down by Schönau-Berzdorf, it was deathly quiet. No distant thunder of artillery rumbled. No small arms fire rattled. There weren’t even any aircraft to be heard in the sky. The lights were still on in Görlitz to the north, casting an orange glow against the low clouds overhead. Unlike the all-too common flickering light of burning towns and villages in Slovakia, it was a steady illumination, adding to the ambient light that our AN-PSQ-20 fusion goggles had to work with. It made navigation through the shadows of the German woods quite a bit easier. That same quiet was making me suspicious. The entire landscape around us seemed asleep and dead. Given that every indicator that intelligence had gotten in the last few weeks was pointing to Görlitz being the staging point for a major offensive aimed at Poland, there should have been more activity. Phil Kerr took a knee next to a mostly-bare tree. The fall had been colder than the Poles

ESCALATION Chapter 2

The abandoned farm sat right at the no-man’s land between the Belgian peacekeeping sector and one of the few, small, Loyalist Slovak Army sectors. While what was left of the Army that hadn’t gone over to the Nationalists after the initial riots was still outwardly loyal to the shaky government in Bratislava, that loyalty was in question among many of the peacekeepers, especially the Germans and Belgians. None of this would have been happening if the Slovaks hadn’t already had enough of both Brussels’ financial demands and the forced immigration, mostly of young Kosovar, Bosnian, and Syrian men. To that end, most of the EDC peacekeepers made no secret of the fact that they didn’t trust the Slovak Army.

ESCALATION Prologue

In the third such killing in the last six months, Senator Tyrone Billings of Michigan was killed by a VBIED outside his Ann Arbor home last night. This comes after three months of threats, following Billings’ vote against S.8853, the “Hate Speech” law that would bring the US into line with European Union standards. Most of Senator Billings’ security was killed in the blast. Police have no leads.