Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller
Contents
PART ONE - OVER THERE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
PART TWO - LANDSTUHL
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
PART THREE - OVER HERE
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
PART FOUR - DOWN SOUTH
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Six Months Later
About The Author
Advance Praise for HIGHEST LAW
“An excellent read. Lawson Pacheco is used to fighting a secret war, but when he finds a secret that feels wrong, he won’t rest. Asking questions costs him and those he loves, but the answers are more important. R.J. Pineiro’s story of Lawson’s search starts out strong, and then it gets better.”
—Larry Bond, New York Times Bestselling author of Red Phoenix
“R. J. Pineiro really captures the fighting spirit of America’s Special Forces operators. A must read for fans of Brad Thor and Vince Flynn!”
—Ward Larsen, USA Today bestselling author of Assassin’s Revenge
“Hold on for a great ride. R.J. Pineiro continues to impress us with his intellect and storytelling.”
—Col. David Hunt, New York Times bestselling author of They Just Don’t Get it.
“From Tom Clancy-level action to the crude aftermath of battle, Highest Law gives a chilling glimpse into a veteran’s life with PTSD. A splendid story, with the highest marks!”
—J.H. Bogran, author of Firefall and Heir of Evil
HIGHEST LAW
A Novel
R.J. Pineiro
Highest Law: A Novel
Auspicious Apparatus Press
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2019 by Rogelio J. Pineiro
Published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved. Produced in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
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BOOKS BY R.J. PINEIRO
Siege of Lightning
Ultimatum
Retribution
Exposure
Breakthrough
01-01-00
Y2K
Shutdown
Conspiracy.com
Firewall
Cyberterror
Havoc
SpyWare
The Eagle and the Cross
The Fall
Without Mercy *
Without Fear *
Ashes of Victory **
Avenue of Regrets
Chilling Effect
Highest Law
Broken Law ***
* With Col. David Hunt
** With Joe Weber
***Forthcoming
Non-fiction
First, Fire the Consultants!*
*With Bob Wilson
For Cameron and Sarah Pineiro,
with all my love.
Acknowledgements
The idea for this book goes back almost five years, as I was watching one of those pharmaceutical company commercials that try to minimize the realities of drugs’ side effects by depicting idyllic scenes of people enjoying life. Meanwhile, the narrator is describing horrible side effects that include thoughts of suicide. So, I asked myself, what if there was such a drug that could indeed not only trigger life-ending thoughts but also turn normal people into violent offenders? I ran the idea by Todd Barselow, editor-in-chief of Auspicious Apparatus Press and, being an Army veteran himself, he suggested I give it a PTSD/military angle. My agent at Sanford J. Greenburger, Matthew Bialer, reviewed early versions of the manuscript and, as always, provided very useful and insightful feedback. But it took another two years before it arrived to its current form, and with the help of Todd Barselow, it has finally reached your hands. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing and researching it. HIGHEST LAW represents the first book in a new (and hopefully thrilling) military suspense-mystery series.
Thanks go to Bob Gleason, editor-in-chief of Tor/Forge Books for his support of this project, and also to Robert Davis, assistant editor at Tor/Forge. A very special shout-out goes to Larry Bond, New York Times bestselling author and Tom Clancy’s co-author of Red Storm Rising, for taking the time to review the manuscript and provide us with that awesome blurb. Thanks also go to bestselling authors Ward Larsen and Col. David Hunt for their support of this project, as well as J.H. Bogran, novelist and editor of The Big Thrill magazine, for his continued support and friendship.
I would also like to thank Alice Frenk as well as my wife, Lory Pineiro, for their thorough proofreading of the manuscript and for providing the final touches. Every author should be so lucky to have such amazing allies in his corner.
A special thanks to Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes, for continuing to make it possible.
Finally, a special thanks to all my fans for your support through the years. Please keep writing and offering suggestions. I do my best to answer every one.
For more information on my novels, please visit www.rjpineiro.com or my FB page at https://www.facebook.com/rjpineirobooks
“The safety of the people shall be the highest law.”
—Cicero
PART ONE
OVER THERE
Chapter 1
I hate this godforsaken land.
The thought floods my mind while I keep my gaze on the alleged IED factory in southwestern Afghanistan we’re supposed to secure, identified by NATO high command at KAF—Kandahar Air Field—as Compound 35.
I inspect it through the cleft of the hill for what seems like the hundredth time in the past two hours with my GPNVG-18 night-vision goggles. The helmet-mounted gadget paints the near darkness in palettes of green that make the terrain below look like a barren lunar landscape.
Normally, we would just blow a compound like this off the map with a Hellfire, especially since the CDE, or Collateral Damage Estimate, is acceptable given the lack of adjoining structures such as schools or mosques.
But the main reason we’re here is because military intelligence believes Compound 35 harbors the senior leadership of the insurgent force in the region, and the powers that be want them alive.
So, enter my SEAL team.
; People back home often ask me what the hell I’m still doing in this corner of the world. This place, after all, has a reputation for royally kicking the shit out of anyone foolish enough to invade it—a tradition dating back to Alexander the Great, the Ottoman Empire, the Sikh Empire, the British Empire, and the once mighty Soviet Union.
And, of course, now us.
I usually tell them I put myself through the rigor of the six-month Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, or BUD/S, to join the Navy SEALs—our nation’s finest 72-virgins dating service—in order to do my part in the War on Terror.
And while that’s partly true, I’m neck-deep in Taliban country primarily because my father and grandfather were frogmen. Pops fought in WWII armed with little more than a diving mask and fins to disarm Nazi mines along the beaches of Normandy. He never made it back to his wife and newborn son. Dad followed in his footsteps and became a member of SEAL Team Two, serving in Operation Desert Storm. I was barely seven when he was killed in 1991 in what was reported as a “training mission,” so I never really knew the man. All I had besides my mother’s recollections were the stories from Dad’s baby brother, USMC Captain Dan Pacheco.
Uncle D. as I call him joined the Navy detail folding the flag draped over my father’s casket that breezy October afternoon at Arlington. I’ll never forget his words as he leaned down to hand my mother that folded flag…
On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation, I wish to present to you—
“A shit sandwich, Law. This op is certifiably Charlie Foxtrot.”
The Arlington ceremony melts away, replaced by a man also wearing a set of night vision goggles, which makes him look like a creature from another galaxy.
It’s my second-in-command, Chief Petty Officer Scott Murphy, a native of Harlem, New York, on his fourth tour in country and second year in my team. In addition to being one hell of a warrior, Murph is a graduate of the U.S. Navy SOCM, the Special Operations Combat Medic course, making him my squad’s default medic.
But what’s really gotten Murph all rattled up is that something just doesn’t smell right with this whole op, starting with the location. I mean, this place is truly in the middle of no-fucking-where, at the crossroads of goat trails that either vanish in the mountains cresting above us or in the vast rocky plains below us. And while you can argue that just being anywhere in this country qualifies as the middle of Timbuktu, the coordinates of this structure, a third up the Sulaiman Mountain Range and well west of our regular operational area, makes me wonder what the hell is really going on. In addition, we’re here to capture as many Talis as possible so an OGA team standing by at an undisclosed location can cuddle with them in some dank, dark room. OGA stands for Other Government Agency, what we call the CIA, and which I try to avoid like the plague.
But orders are orders, and this op is at the very top of the list for NATO.
“Well, Murph,” I finally whisper back through the tactical throat mic connected to my Multiband Inter/Intra Team Radio (MBITR) strapped to my utility vest. “If this was easy…”
“They would have sent the Canadians,” he replies.
“Copy that.”
“Or maybe the Lithuanians, Ukrainians, or Belgians,” he adds, rattling off the list of other countries with troops currently deployed at KAF.
“Or maybe the U.S. Army,” chimes in USMC Sergeant James Chappelle, kneeling on the other side of Murph behind a cluster of boulders overlooking our objective. Chappy is the team’s demolition expert. The wiry native of El Paso, Texas, has a talent for blowing shit up, which I witnessed during my first USMC tour in Iraq, where we served in the same unit. Unlike Dad and Pops, I didn’t start in the Navy. I survived the barrios of East Los Angeles thanks to the tough love dispensed by Uncle D., so I ended up following in his footsteps and also became a United States Marine, serving two tours in Iraq and two more right here in Afghanistan before earning my trident.
Chappy joined the team after four tours with the USMC EOD, the Marine Corps Explosives Ordnance Disposal, without losing a body part. In my book that makes him an expert at disassembling the shit built to disassemble us.
“Watch it, Chappy,” warns U.S. Army Command Master Sergeant Leslie Hope over the squadron frequency while huddling behind a cluster of trees a hundred feet back, covering our six.
The next member of my team, and the largest at almost six-five and two-eighty, grew up at the U.S. Army Support Activity Fort Dix, New Jersey. The son of a career enlisted man, Dix—no one calls him Leslie—spent his teenage years sacking quarterbacks at the nearby Pemberton Township schools, where his physique and smarts got him a football scholarship to Rutgers. But the strapping teen had other plans: joining the Army to follow in his father’s footsteps and eventually doing four tours with the 7th Special Forces Group, first in Iraq and later in Afghanistan. I met him during his final stint with the 7th SFG at Bagram Air Base, where I was impressed with his warring skills and encouraged him to sign up for BUD/S. But it took two more years before he did because another entity also had its eye on him: The Defense Intelligence Agency, the military counterpart to the CIA. But Dix didn’t last long in the world of secrets—and he also doesn’t like to talk about what he did in that time before heading to Coronado.
“Kill the fucking chatter,” says my last and also newest team member in a voice as dry as the rocky surroundings. Master Sergeant Bruno Copeland is perched a thousand feet off to our right and higher up the hill armed with a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle.
I met Cope in Iraq the year before I signed up for BUD/S, and I also encouraged him to try out. But like Dix, Cope was also sucked into the DIA, though he only lasted a year, returning to his comfort zone as a Delta sniper for two more years before earning his trident. He’s now on his third year with the teams and the first tour under my command.
I reach for the small canteen strapped to my side and take a swig, the metallic-tasting water cutting through the desert dust but not quite quenching my thirst. Putting it away, I ask, “How’s the range, Cope?”
“Comfortable,” he replies through the MBITR. “Range twelve hundred feet. Wind right to left…six knots.”
I continue to inspect the one-story target, roughly eighty feet across and just as many deep nestled in the rear of a small plateau at nearly four thousand feet high, which in this mountain range means about a quarter of the way up. Four trails project north west from the rear of the place, disappearing up the mountain, and just as many head the other way, toward the rocky plains of the desert floor. The closest semblance of civilization is Zaranj-Delaram Road, a glorified goat trail winding down southwesterly from the mountains and eventually reaching the Iranian town of Zabol just across the border.
Yeah, that’s how far west we are from our operational theater, within spitting distance of Iran.
Like most dwellings in this nation resembling the most desolate of wastelands, the target is made of a mixture of reddish mud, rock, and straw with a flat roof. The entire structure is surrounded by a tall mud wall with a single access gate wide enough for a vehicle. Off to our far right—I’m guessing at least a thousand feet—a ranch fence encloses a whole bunch of goats, which seem unaware of our presence.
And we aim to keep it that way.
Nothing like goats suddenly bleating in the night to alert those inside the compound, especially when there are definite signs of life in there, as measured by the smoke coiling skyward from a pipe at the back of the structure.
According to Sat and UAV surveillance, there could be as many as a dozen enemy combatants holed up in there. But those numbers could vary drastically if one of the thousands of tunnels in the region, including the many traversing this mountain range, happens to connect to this place.
I glare up at this cool early November sky for a moment and let out a sigh.
Dropping my gaze back to the compound and deciding that the pict
ure in front of me isn’t going to get any better, I give the order.
Things now happen quite rapidly, the product of insane training, compounded with physical ability, and augmented by the latest in high-tech weaponry.
Plus, a handful of balls.
SEAL or not, it still takes massive amounts of huevos to storm places potentially packed with battle-hardened warriors. To the Talis, it doesn’t really matter if you come from Harlem, East LA, El Paso—or even the Soviet Union or the Sikh-fucking-Empire. There’s no such thing as racial bigotry among them. We’re all infidels equally worthy of their righteous wrath.
While Cope remains in his sniper perch, I lead the four-man stack, covering the greenish world in front of me with the muzzle of my MP7SD, the Navy version of the venerable Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun. It includes a fully-integrated sound suppressor for missions where stealth and secrecy are a first-order consideration. Murph and Chappy follow close behind managing the flanks while Dix handles the rear to prevent us from catching a 7.62 in the ass. That’s what we call the 7.62x39mm full metal jacket ammunition of the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of the Talis.
Our approach is classic Close Quarter Battle, CQB, proceeding swiftly but silently down the steep hill and across the narrow plateau leading to the gate.
The team maintains good muzzle discipline, avoiding sweeping each other’s body parts, moving as one while keeping an eye out for any fresh dirt that could signal a recently buried IED. The chances, though, are pretty slim there’s one anywhere in the vicinity—if you believe the intel about this place being an IED factory. Plus, there are goats in the vicinity.
Talis typically don’t shit where they eat.
Murph and I cover the left side of the gate while Chappy and Dix reach the other side, backs pressed against the mud wall, muzzles pointed at the ground. I glance up at the mountain behind us on this moonless—and therefore very dark—night before asking, “How’re we looking, Cope?”