Diamondhead by Patrick Robinson

Navy SEALS are on duty in Iraq. A squad from SEAL Team 10 gets the call that a fellow squad has been attacked with a new killer missile that can penetrate tank armor and then ignites into flame, burning everyone inside alive. Upon arrival to the site, Lt Cmdr MacKenzie “Mack” Bedford eyes a group of towelheads across the river appearing ready to load up another. With the bad guys is one person who looks out of place, in a suit with a distinctive red handkerchief in his breast pocket. He is using a scope on a tripod, then 2 more missiles streak across the river detonating 2 more tanks, killing members of Mack’s squad. The bad guys now hold up their hands and walk across the bridge because surrender means staying alive, but Mack knows these guys just incinerated his friends, runs up and mows them all down. The resulting court martial exonerates Mack of murder, but he is discharged and summarily sent home to the coast of Maine.

The missile, known as the Diamondhead, is manufactured secretly in France and sold to Iran. The industrialist in charge, Henri Foche, is also the leading candidate for President from the ultra right wing Gaullist party. Back home in Maine, Mack’s young son is fighting a deadly disease that only a hugely expensive operation done in Switzerland might help. Add to that, a family-run shipyard in his hometown has for decades had a standing contract with France to build frigates, but Foche has pledged that all weapons for France will be made in France and will cut off all foreign contracts. That would shut down the local shipyard. The patriarch asks Mack if he knows anyone who might accept a contract to assassinate Foche. He gets some leads, but they don’t pan out. By chance, he reads a story on Foche in a magazine and recognizes him as that guy with the red handkerchief. Mack then accepts the contract himself and arranges for his son to get the needed surgery with the $2 million he will make for the job.

Now, the story shifts into serious overdrive as Mack plans out how he will get to Europe, all his disguises, obtain a sniper’s rifle, get to France, find Forche, set up for the kill, take the shot, then escape and work his way back to Maine. Absolutely riveting stuff, if you ask me. Once he gets to France, don’t be planning to do anything that can’t wait.

I stumbled across Robinson while wandering the shelves at B/N a number of years ago. While he has a number of fiction and non-fiction books out, his action thrillers are what hooked me. His stories are usually the U.S. vs. some Islamist nuts with the heavy lifting done by the Navy, especially the submarine fleet and the SEALS: Nimitz Class (bad guys manage to sink a US nuclear aircraft carrier), Kilo Class (China has ordered 9 Kilo class subs from the Russians and the US is going to make damn sure none get delivered), HMS Unseen (bad guys manage to steal a British sub and take down civilian aircraft flying over the Atlantic), and on and on. His last book, Ghost Force, was something about SEALS and a new Faulkland’s war that I was less than impressed with, so when I saw this title on the new release table at B/N, I was hesitant, but the library had it (no wait!) and I plunged in.

This really is all about Mack Bedford hunting the animal whose weapons, uniformly declared a crime against humanity by the U.N., have been killing American Special Forces right and left. Any other characters are minor players. While many of the mysteries posted here are about crackling dialogue, this one is about planning, execution and the chase. Over half the book is involved in carrying out the execution…er…assassination, of Henri Foche by Mack . . . the dialogue of the French police hunting him (and his various alter ego disguises) is almost a afterthought. Read this for the action. Here’s hoping Robinson finds a way to get Mack Bedford back with the SEALS or involved with other stealthy stories.