An Act of War

ISBN-13: 9780615793337 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 314 str.

Michael K. McMahan

Opis

The incident was not particularly gruesome or harrowing, compared to most. It was a brief, solitary encounter, one that ended with Travis Kelly still alive and his enemy counterpart, an NVA officer, dead on a trail near the Cambodian border. It was the aftermath-as chilling as it was distressing-that stays with Travis, now a retired tool and die operator and part-time farmer in North Carolina. Just feet away from the slain officer lay a young boy, no more than ten, trembling and hiding in the underbrush. Travis made a decision to leave the boy. It was that or turn him over to the South Vietnamese regulars, notorious for their corruption and cruelty. Forty years later, Travis is shocked to read an internet article about Nguyen Li Minh, a Vietnamese man who claims to be the son of the slain NVA officer as well as the grandson of none other than Ho Chi Minh himself. Unsure how to proceed, Travis contacts Walt Bradley, his former company commander and now an Undersectary with the Department of Homeland Security. But when Walt is assassinated outside his home, Travis finds himself embroiled in a lethal international incident. Agents from Homeland Security and the FBI whisk Travis, considered a suspect, off to DC, where he is interviewed and asked to cooperate with the investigation. Things quickly go sideways when Nguyen Li Minh brazenly kidnaps Travis's widowed daughter and her four children and takes them back to Vietnam, where they are to be held as ransom. Minh wants a face-to-face meeting with Travis, but Travis has been ordered by a federal judge not to leave the country. Unknown to all but his ophthalmologist, Travis, who has been suffering from headaches and blurred vision of late, likely has a brain tumor. He won't know more until he has an MRI and an appointment with his neurologist. Unfortunately, that will have to wait. Defying a federal judge's orders, Travis assumes a fake identity, complete with forged passport and driver's license, and flies to Vietnam, where he plans to confront Minh and rescue his daughter and grandchildren. Ostensibly working on his own, Travis will get help from Erin Stephens, Deputy Director with the Department of Homeland Security. As attractive as she is tough, Erin is a former West Pointer whose doggedness can't be diminished. She takes two bullets from Minh's henchmen, with one of the bullets penetrating her bulletproof vest, but hardly wastes time recovering at a hospital before hopping on a plane for Vietnam. Travis will also get help from his son Brad, a sergeant first class in the Army who just finished his third hardship tour, this one in Afghanistan. Although Brad doesn't always get along with his father, he's very much his father's son: tough, brave, and disciplined. Then there's Chinh, a mute muscleman who acts as Minh's driver and bodyguard. Although working for the bad guys, Chinh watches out for Jen, Travis's kidnapped daughter, and when the time comes, he proves a valuable ally. Travis racked up a number of commendations during his first fight in Vietnam: the Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star, Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts-the list goes on. But during his second foray into that country's forbidding jungles, it's the human connections he has made over the years-to his daughter and son, to his late wife, to a woman he sits next to during the long flight to Vietnam-that serve him most ably. Though incarcerated, beaten, and later left for dead in one of the same tunnels that he patrolled decades ago, he learns that he's never fully alone, not even in his darkest hour. In the end, it's his loved ones who come to his rescue-and just in time.