Target Deck - 02 (67 page)

Soon it’s obvious there’s something more sinister than “white slavery” going on. What starts as a rescue mission rapidly degenerates into a small-scale war, with no quarter asked or given. Death is dealt with everything from bare hands to automatic weapons, but it’s going to take a lot more than brute force for the Retreads to fight their way out of this deathtrap.

Tier Zero
is sequel to Henry Brown’s
Hell and Gone
, both available wherever books are sold online.

Kruger and his team are indicative of the evolution of warfare, they are former elite soldiers working for a Private Military Company that exists in the gray area between government and business. As security contractors they sometimes, but not always, work on behalf of the US Government essentially as a proxy force that can be denied when things go wrong.
The action clips along as Kruger's men are called into the Congo to retake a gold mine that has been captured by rebel fighters. Again, the scenario is anything but fiction and reminded me of the Port Soyo mission that Executive Outcomes executed in the 1990's. DR does his homework in regards to the geo-political perspective as well as the tactical aspects of this book. Although DR is a Navy veteran, he doesn't have any background in Infantry operations, something that is surprising as the action scenes are so spot on. Even the verbage and terminology is accurate to the point that I'm starting to think DR might be some kind of military contractor himself! Got anything you want to tell me DR?
Things get ugly for our protagonists as they move on to a secondary objective that they hadn't anticipated, a hostage rescue of some missionaries that have been captured by the same group of rebels. Teaming up with a Special Forces trained indigenous unit, Kruger's team has the odds stacked against them. They might be able to pull off the impossible, but it won't be pretty.
-Reviewed by Jack Murphy