This is book three of the Breed Thriller series and sees Breed approached by a CIA Deputy Director Anya Stein, who is looking to recruit him to the Company for an upcoming job, but without going into any further details. He declines and goes back to his remote home in Montana and the only contact number he can give her is for his old neighbour Sam Crockett and his granddaughter Heth. Crockett knew his father and worked alongside him during the Vietnam War. Breed wants to take some time off and relax, but finds the fact that Stein has two personal bodyguards with her to meet him in the middle of Washington, DC, somewhat strange. Something is clearly up and he will be finding that out sooner rather than later! It all goes back to 1974, when six former Green Berets were sent into China to assassinate a high level figure. The mission failed spectacularly and one of them didn’t make it home, whilst all the others were injured to varying degrees. They had to flee through a bat filled old mine and never heard anything about this failure for another fifty years. Their team name was the Black Sheep and the operation was called Operation Guillotine.
Crockett and his old buddy Butler had gone deer hunting and failed to check in with Heth, leaving her to raise the alarm. Butler had been shot dead and Crockett was wounded, but missing. She asks Breed to help looking for her grandfather and it soon turns out that someone was deliberately targeting the former Green Beret team and looking to assassinate them and those in charge of the operation. What it is the Chinese are hoping to cover up is more monstrous than anything any of them can imagine, with a horrifying secret linked to the very bat caves the men used to escape the enemy all those years ago. Now the bats and their DNA are being used to create a deadly virus, with an extremely high death rate. Breed had only sought to find Crockett and save him from whoever was trying to kill him, but they soon get involved in trying to save the other members of his old team and find out a shocking truth from all those years ago. Breed and Stein are in charge of a new team, with Crockett and Stroud from the old team, as well as two seasoned men he has worked with before, all on a secret mission back to this hellhole, possibly all on a one way ticket to save the world. There are spies on both sides, so their arrival will be expected and nothing ever goes to plan on a military operation, no matter what you train for and this team hasn’t had long to prepare. If they can’t destroy the site, then they are all dead!
There are a few surprising twists as the mission doesn’t go quite to plan and secrets from the intervening years are finally revealed to Breed. Not all of them are going to make it home form this one and most knew it was a suicide mission anyway. An interesting read with plenty of action and very realistic memories of the Vietnam War and its side effects on those who returned to a hostile country, and with spies and killers for hire. I look forward to reading some more of Breed’s adventures in the future, whatever period they may cover. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.