RATS by Joe Klingler

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Three disconnected interruptions of raw material supply to the US (the military in particular) have occurred. One of those massive cargo ships sinks off the coast of California before it can belch out its cargo, the Alaska pipeline is disgorging oil (faulty pumps) and a third I can’t recall (and don’t want to page through my Kindle to find). General Billy Williams, a counter terrorism aide to the current president, and his aide/sniper, Corporeal Claire Ferreti other fly into Alaska to find out what really happened to the pipeline.

It wasn’t a pump failure. A few miles of the pipeline had been blown up by a series of land-based drone delivery vehicles – aka RATS or Rotating Axial Traction System.  One of the drones didn’t detonate as it should and a 12yo kid finds it and he is the subject of inquiry by Williams and Ferreti.

Each drone is a bomb made with essentially off the shelf motorcycle parts except for the trigger, a one of a kind cell phone component made only in China. Tracking down the part, Williams uncovers a clandestine meeting of military and money deep in the jungle of Vietnam. He sends Clair and 2 other black ops types to sneak up and put a slug into the man behind the Alaska attack.

The mission is a success. Extraction? Not a success. Their extraction point is targeted, killing the other 2 operatives and severely injuring Claire. But she is found by this cagey hermit living in the jungle and nursed back to health.

Damon (the cagey hermit) is a grown up Amerasian’s child left behind when the US pulled out of Vietnam. And he is quite the engineer, both mechanical and computer. What has irked him to the nth degree is the amount of ordinance left on and under the ground of Vietnam and the resulting number of walking casualties, children in particular.

While nursing Claire back to health, he uses his wits and his computers to learn that General Williams ordered the strike that was meant kill all 3 of the commandoes, Claire included. Now, Claire and Damon plot to take out the General and extort a ton of money to aid the clearing of land mines in SE Asia.

This may sound a bit trumped up and hard to believe . . . and it was, a bit. Well paced and a decent plot for a first time novelist. Just seemed a bit far fetched for a single person living in a jungle cave to have NSA quality computing as well as a number of oh-so convenient coincidences. People won’t be disappointed in reading this. It goes quite fast. Just don’t expect to be left with much when it’s done. It’s just on to the next book. 

East Coast Don