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One Rough Man: A Spy Thriller (Pike Logan Thriller Book 1) Kindle Edition
They call it the Taskforce. Commissioned at the highest level of the U.S. government. Protected from the prying eyes of Congress and the media. Designed to operate outside the bounds of U.S. law. Trained to exist on the ragged edge of human capability.
Pike Logan was the most successful operator on the Taskforce, his instincts and talents unrivaled—until personal tragedy permanently altered his outlook on the world. Pike knows what the rest of the country might not want to admit: The real threat isn’t from any nation, any government, any terrorist group. The real threat is one or two men, controlled by ideology, operating independently, in possession of a powerful weapon.
Buried in a stack of intercepted chatter is evidence of two such men. The transcripts are scheduled for analysis in three months. The attack is mere days away. It is their bad luck that they’re about to cross paths with Pike Logan. Because Pike Logan has nothing left to lose.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDutton
- Publication dateFebruary 17, 2011
- File size2289 KB
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Review
“An auspicious, adrenaline-soaked rocket ship of a debut novel. Taylor’s protagonist, Pike Logan, is one rough man who is one bad dude—as a superhero, Pike ranks right up there with Jason Bourne, Jack Reacher, and Jack Bauer.”—John Lescroart, New York Times bestselling author
“Brad Taylor has created a feisty, devil-may-care hero in Pike Logan…A coiling plot, crisp writing, and constant braids of suspense make One Rough Man one exciting read.”—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author
“A fast and furious tale with a boots-on-the-ground realism....Pike Logan is a tough, appealing hero.”—Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author
“The deadly duel between Pike and the terrorists is both cerebral and graphically violent...[Taylor] brings such incredible realism and authenticity that readers feel like they are looking over the shoulders of a real antiterrorist operation.”—Library Journal
More Praise for Brad Taylor and the Pike Logan series
“Fresh plot, great action and Taylor clearly knows what he is writing about....When it comes to tactics and hardware he is spot on.”—Vince Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“Taylor has become one of the very best writers of thrillers with a military and special-ops background...Comparisons to Vince Flynn and Brad Thor are expected and not inaccurate, but Taylor is now in a class by himself.”—Booklist
“Slick, exciting action and credible complexity are the hallmarks of Taylor’s high-caliber thrillers.”—Library Journal
“Few authors write about espionage, terrorism, and clandestine hit squads as well as Taylor does.”—Houston Press
“Action packed....Those who prize authentic military action will be rewarded.”—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Brad Taylor is the author of military thrillers in the Taskforce series and the Pike Logan series, including the New York Times bestseller No Fortunate Son. He is a retired lieutenant colonel and a twenty-one-year veteran of the US Army Infantry and Special Forces, including eight years with the 1st Special Forces Operational DetachmentDelta, popularly known as Delta Force. He retired in 2010 after serving more than two decades and participating in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as classified operations around the globe. His final military post was as assistant professor of military science at The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. When not writing, he serves as a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The target took a shortcut, unwittingly shaving another four minutes off of life as he knew it. His appearance surprised me, because I had parked in an alley specifically to get out of his line of march, figuring he'd go the long way around the block. He was about fifty feet back and walking at an unhurried pace. A minute later he passed me, unaware of my existence. He was so close that I could have flung open the door and knocked him to the ground. From there, it would have been easy to thump him on the head, throw him in the back, and haul ass. That would have been a bit extreme even for me, so I let him go. Better to stick with the plan.
I keyed the handset of my radio. "All elements, all elements, this is Pike. Target just passed my location and intersected Twenty-second Street. He's crossing it now."
Pike's not my real name. It's my call sign. We use them because nobody in my unit wants to use military ones like "Victor-Bravo Three-Seven." I'd like to say that I got mine for doing something badass, but you don't pick your call sign. It picks you, and usually for something that's not flattering. In my case it came from a stupid comment I'd made during training. I grew up in Oregon, spending my time hunting and fishing. I was trying to describe how we should do an ambush, but wasn't communicating things right. I finally said, "You know, like a pike attacks when it catches another fish." Everyone looked at me for a second in silence, then broke out laughing. For the next two days every time I tried to suggest something, someone would say, "You mean like a pike would do it?" The name stuck. It's not too bad as call signs go. I suppose I could have been "Flounder." All in all, it's much better than my given name, which I despise.
The Foggy Bottom street in front of me was starting to clog up with the noontime lunch crowd, all out enjoying the summer sunshine. This would make it easier for my team to track the target without compromise, but the heat was turning my car into a sauna. Why the hell this guy liked wandering aimlessly around outside was beyond me, but the pattern he had created would be his downfall. Humans are creatures of habit. What looks absolutely random once will look like the same ol', same ol' over time. We had reached the same ol' stage with this target and were within minutes of taking him down.
After crossing the street, the target entered a coffee shop and took a seat at an outside patio. Right on schedule. I saw the team settle around him like an invisible blanket. The crowd flowed around them all without a clue what was going on. That always gave me a perverse sense of pleasure. While rushing to catch the Metro or get lunch, they were brushing past some of the finest predators on earth and didn't even know it. Sometimes I'm tempted to grab one of them and yell, "Don't you know what's going on here? Can't you see what's happening? You ought to get on your knees and thank the Lord that people like me are out here protecting your sorry ass." Yeah, that's arrogant and unfair. I suppose executing the operation without anyone knowing is pleasure enough. After all, if they did know, that would mean we had failed. In the end, they could go about buying their Starbucks or bitching about the price of gas because my team and I would have prevented something much, much worse, like a suicide bomber at their kid's school.
In my mind, the world is split neatly into two groups: meat-eaters and plant-eaters. Nothing is wrong with either one. Both are necessary. One contributes much, much more to society than the other. The other is necessary to protect the contribution. I'm a meat-eater. My existence allows the plant-eater to contribute. Some plant-eaters, living in a so-called civilized world, call me evil, but at the end of the day, when the bad man comes and the plant-eater's praying for a miracle, I'm what shows up.
I scanned behind me after the target passed and was surprised to see another man at the entrance to the alley, large, bald-headed, and looking out of place. He loitered for a couple of seconds, then began moving my way. He's following our guy.
"All elements, this is Pike, we've got a trailer with the target. Stand by."
Bull, the trigger for the takedown, said, "You sure it's not a ghost?"
Bull was asking if I was seeing things that weren't really there. "No, I'm not sure, but he refused to enter the alley until the target was clear, then walked at a pretty fast pace to catch up."
If he was tracking our man, I had no idea why. We had no intel indicating the target had any security, or that anyone else wanted him. The guy could be police, a rival group, or even a counter-surveillance effort protecting the target. Or he could be a lost tourist and I was jumping to conclusions. Either way, Baldy—and anyone else with him—would have to be separated from the target. If he was a tourist, it would take care of itself. If not, that left my team. And once we executed, we would need to be pretty damn swift, because after we got rid of this guy, his people would know someone else was on the ground and interested in the same target.
I gave a description of the trailer and watched him take a seat in the coffee shop, confirming my fears.
"Okay, listen up. We're going to keep the plan. If Baldy's not a ghost, he'll follow our target into the planned kill zone. We'll let the target go through, then take him out. Acknowledge."
"Pike, this is Knuckles… we can't duplicate this hit twice in one day. We're going to lose the target. We need to develop the situation, not start thumping people willy-nilly."
"We won't lose the target, because you're going to tag him at his table. Using that beacon, we'll take him down at the parking garage to his apartment. That was our contingency plan anyway. It'll just be two hits instead of one."
"Pike, that damn beacon hasn't worked yet. We keep getting false positives. We're liable to take out some old lady."
Knuckles was my second-in-command, or 2IC. He's a Squid, but I don't hold that against him, since he's a SEAL. He's just like me, only he picked the wrong branch of service. His call sign was Knuckles, but it should have been Mother Hen, at least while we were preparing for operations. Once we were engaged it would be something like DeathDealingSlaughterMonster. Right now, Knuckles was in mother hen mode. He was a finicky perfectionist. Someone who wanted to ensure that every piece of kit, tactic, or technique was absolutely perfect before being used on an operation. It wasn't that he was rigid, since he was one of the best on fluid operations, and he did have a point. If everything's perfect when you start, then working through contingencies, or what we call "flexing," is that much easier. If you start with something that's faulty, then you'll be flexing from the get-go. The thing is, every operation goes to shit at one point or another—like right now. Doesn't matter how much you plan. You can either handle the curve ball or not.
"Look, I get the risk, but we're running out of time. We don't have enough people to track both guys. Just tag the target and use your judgment. If you can't get him, you can't get him."
"What if the trailer's not alone?"
Knuckles was thinking right along with me. "I hear you. We'll develop the situation enough to confirm or deny he's alone. If he's got someone else working with him, we'll pass. If not, we'll take him down in the primary kill zone, leaving you and Bull with the contingency for the target."
There was a pregnant pause, then, "Roger. Out."
"Bull, keep your eyes on Baldy and see if he makes commo with anyone."
I watched a homeless man approach our target. Jesus, now what? This was turning into a circus. I was about to call Knuckles and warn him when I realized that's who I was looking at. Pretty damn good job of camouflage.
He shoved a cup at the target, begging for some change. The man ignored him. Knuckles grew belligerent, bringing out the manager. I'm never going to hear the end of this. Knuckles was breaking the cardinal rule of surveillance by interacting with the target. On top of that, he was creating a scene that would be remembered after the hit. He was going to be pissed that I forced this on him.
The manager came out shouting. Knuckles waved his arms, slinging coins from the cup all over the place. Bending down around the target's ankles, he scrambled to get his precious money. In the blink of an eye, I saw him slip something into the cuff of the target's pants.
The size of a micro-SD card, it was a passive beacon that worked like an E-Z Pass on a toll road. It would register every time it passed a special receiver. The good part was that the card didn't need GPS or transmitting capability, along with the requisite battery source, so it could be made very, very small. The bad part was the beacon wouldn't give a specific location. It would only confirm our suspicions as the beacon passed our receivers, which we had placed throughout the target's habitual route. The final receiver was in the stairwell of the target's parking garage. A team, hidden in the shadows, would deploy when the beacon signaled. Unfortunately, with the receivers' track record, it could trigger if the wind blew the wrong way.
After watching Knuckles get chased away, I gave Bull a call. "Anything going on?"
"No. He's looking at the target, but so is everyone else thanks to Knuckles's little play. Hasn't communicated with anyone."
"Roger. Retro, you guys ready?"
"Yeah. We just don't know what the trailer looks like."
"Don't worry about that. I'll trigger. If it's no good—"
"Break—break. This is Bull. Target's on the move."
Shit. That was quick. Ready or not, the target was going to force our hand.
Product details
- ASIN : B00475ARQG
- Publisher : Dutton (February 17, 2011)
- Publication date : February 17, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 2289 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 431 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #35,693 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #187 in Terrorism Thrillers (Kindle Store)
- #274 in Mystery Action Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #520 in Action Thriller Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Brad Taylor was born on Okinawa, Japan, but grew up on 40-acres in rural Texas. Graduating from the University of Texas, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Infantry. Brad served for more than 21 years, retiring as a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel. During that time he held numerous Infantry and Special Forces positions, including eight years in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment - Delta where he commanded multiple troops and a squadron. He has conducted operations in support of US national interests in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other classified locations.
His final assignment was as the Assistant Professor of Military Science at The Citadel in Charleston, SC. He holds a Master's of Science in Defense Analysis from the Naval Postgraduate School, with a concentration in Irregular Warfare. In 2011, Brad published his debut novel, One Rough Man, which was an immediate success and launched the Pike Logan series. Now with 17 installments and more than 3 million copies sold, the series has consistently hit the New York Times bestseller list. When not writing, he serves as a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies. He lives in Charleston, SC with his wife and two daughters.
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Top reviews from the United States
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I love the Pike series, you will not go wrong with any book, they are all great. But this one is the best!
He has invented a quick moving plot that we can not only follow but that we can believe. He takes us from Central America to Norway to Bosnia with enough description that Taylor might have been at these locations. He surely did his homework if he hasn't been there in person.
We suffer no ambiguity in this story. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. We do receive a nicely calibrated dose of bad guy motivation, which is nice to have. The baddies might be totally bad but they are not simple cartoons. They do what they do for their own reasons and we know and understand those reasons without having to agree with them.
The good guys are not all drawn with as much care. We don't know much about the team mates, including knowing what they look like. In a fast paced thriller this might not be necessary but it prevents the coveted five star thriller rating.
On the strength of reading the book further along in the series, I ordered out three or four more Pike Logan thrillers. I expect to devour them as fast as I did One Rough Man.
Not so. Former Special Forces officer Brad Taylor uses his considerable talents to meld the elements into a fast-moving, compelling, military-style thriller that keeps the pages turning faster than the countless bullets that continuously fly through the air. In addition to non-stop action, Taylor gives us sympathetic protagonists whose depressing back-stories set them up for redemption. His military background gives considerable authenticity to the tale. Finally, the initially prickly relationship between the male and female main characters slowly morphs into a budding romance.
Taylor is a good, but not great, writer, with repeated and annoying punctuation gaffes. But his talent lies in the finely-tuned storytelling that ultimately turns the incredible into a highly believable, rapid-fire thriller in this genre. Can't wait to read the sequel.
Job well done, sir.
Authorized by the President, the Taskforce was formed to operate outside the law and without sanction from congressional oversight in order to deal with the increasing presence of terrorists. Pike Logan was the best of the best, and as team leader never failed to complete a mission successfully. At his best when the plans started to break down, Pike was known for his quick thinking and decisive action. Finally succumbing to his wife's repeated requests to retire from his job, Pike was on his last mission when tragedy struck his family. Unable to deal with the guilt of being away when his family needed him most, Pike went on a downward spiral and sought solace in the bottom of a bottle.
Meanwhile, Professor John Cahill was in the Guatemalan jungle searching for his mythical Temple of the Priests. When his guides refused to go any further into the jungle, two young natives seeking treasure stole his GPS and found the Temple. They also found a white powder which quickly killed one of the boys while the other made it back to tell the story. Cahill, ever cautious, embedded the GPS coordinates in some music mp3 files and e-mailed them to his niece Jennifer, who was a student at the College of Charleston. He then deleted all information from his laptop and GPS.
Miguel, who was a very successful smuggler, was in negotiations with two Arabs to smuggle certain items into the United States when the young boy from the jungle told the tale of finding the Temple and the ensuing death of his friend from the mysterious white powder. Feigning ignorance of the Spanish language, the two Arab terrorists became interested in the powder as a source for a WMD. Miguel, also known as "Machete," was more interested in the treasure and potential wealth it may bring. Machete ordered his henchmen to pick up Professor Cahill in hopes of finding the location of the Temple. Cahill told Machete that he had FedExed the GPS to his niece in Charleston, South Carolina. Professor Cahill died as Machete was torturing him to find out additional information about the GPS. The two terrorists found the key to the embedded mp3 files on a thumb drive amid Cahill's possessions and were able to obtain the deadly powder.
Machete sent a team to Charleston to retrieve the GPS from Jennifer and as luck would have it, Pike was able to thwart the attack and kill the mobsters. Pike did not want to be looking over his shoulder from the Machete's agents for the rest of his life, so he agreed to go to Guatemala and deliver the non-existent GPS. Jennifer went with Pike and they formed a somewhat tenuous and unlikely partnership. It was in Guatemala that Pike and Jennifer learned of the terrorist's possession of the WMD and they decided they had to stop the attack in order to prevent widespread death and panic.
In Washington DC, a member of the government also learned of the terrorist's intentions and decided to delete all known references to the attack in order for him to play the part of hero and savior, thus catapulting him to a higher position in the government. He wanted no loose ends and ordered Pike and Jennifer to be killed. Therefore the dynamic duo found themselves chasing the terrorists and dodging multiple assassination attempts.
This was a very good debut novel with an interesting plot and in depth knowledge of special forces operations. If you enjoy action packed novels as I do, then this is the book for you. I look forward to reading the future adventures of Pike Logan and Jennifer Cahill.
Top reviews from other countries
Pike und Jennifer werden ein Team im Team. Zusammen gehen sie auf die Jagd.
Brad Taylor schreibt in der ersten Person, verbindet so den Leser mit Pike auf eine meisterliche Art und Weise. Pike Logan ist ein Mann, der auf der einen Seite durch Wände marschiert, aber auf der anderen Seite einer Frau die Tür aufhält. Er ist stur, verletzlich und kompromisslos, weiß, wie man Terroristen aufspürt, beschattet und mit Erlaubnis seines Chefs Kurt Hale auch endgültig von dieser Erde befördert.
Wer einen realistischen, schnellen und punktgenauen Stil mit einer guten Portion Irony und Witz mag, ist bei Brad Taylor absolut richtig. Die Story ist gut recherchiert, die Surveillance trocken "All elements ..." und die Story führt den Leser in eine brutale Welt, in denen ein Menschenleben wenig und tote Frauen und Kinder viel bedeuten.
Für mich ist dieses Buch ein gelungenes Debüt, sehr empfehlenswert und ein nächtlicher Pageturner.