The Raid by Steven Konkoly

This Part 2. Looks like Part 1 (The Rescue) was about megalomanic named Harcourt attempting to take over the private mercenary business using Aegis Global, his security company. He didn’t, but he did get away to hatch another plan to make him wealthy and win back his lost power.

Part 2 picks up sometime later on the USA-Mexico border. A couple border patrol agents find a half dozen young kids in the desert. And they aren’t Hispanic. European by looks. When checking out the surrounding desert, an explosion takes one agent and the other is killed. Their jeep is incinerated, and the kids are never heard from.

The loss of agents stirs up Senate and House committees. Senator Steele, who lost her husband and child at the hands of Harcourt, has her own private little army and sends Ryan Decker and Harlow McKenzie (and crew, all of whom have a history with Harcourt) to the border to look at the explosion site. What they find is unnerving.

An underground bunker with crates of Javelin anti-tank missiles that have gone missing from some Army ordinance supply. Someone is preparing for war and it ain’t the USA or Mexico. Only other option at this location is a war between the cartels that control drug, money, and human trafficking across the border.

Harcourt has somehow convinced some Army brass, a Senator and a Congressman that the problem with the drug trade is that it is uncontrolled. So why not start a war amongst the major cartels, supply one group with advanced weaponry, and sit back to watch the well-armed cartel take over and then control border crossings while laundering money to the officers and elected officials.

Almost sounds like Iran-Contra from the 1980s. Konkoly’s bio says he is former military and the plot is replete with street and desert battle details that lend considerable authenticity to the story. And he has over 20 books to his credit meaning a mature presentation. Maybe not having read The Rescue is at issue, but I really didn’t get much of a feel for Decker, Harlow, Senator Steele or any of the other supporting characters (except maybe Garza and he appears to be new to the series). The other thing that nagged me was the dialogue. We all hear about the banter that goes on in stressful situations, but to me, this ‘banter’ seemed forced, bordering on juvenile. Just before a parachute jump, Decker says to a buddy, ‘See you on the ground.” His buddy says, ‘Not if I see you first.’ That kind of stuff is all over the story. Good grief. Read some George V. Higgins or Charlie Stella or Brian Panowich or Chris Offut to see how dialogue is meant to be delivered. Having said that, I did like the story. A lot. 

East Coast Don