For an avid military fiction reader only,
a few times do you get a read with a classic exploration of morality, love and
vengeance similar to this exemplar piece put together by Lloyd Lofthouse.
'Never for Glory: A Josh Kavanagh
Thriller' is a sequel to the 2021, 'The Patriot Oath: A Josh Kavanagh Thriller'
however this time round it is more personal as our main character is intent on
seeking revenge for his wife's coma and is hell-bent on getting the rogue agent
responsible for this.
His mission revolves around moving to the
war-ravaged and lawless area of Southern Venezuela as a lone paratrooper. While
at it he discovers he might have fallen into Damian Bran's trap who is a former
CIA now working with the enemy and Josh's fiercest rival. He also finds out
about a Russian mob boss, who rather than collect art, fast cars or even yachts
his specialty revolves around collecting beautiful women as sex trophies and
toys. Despite his desire for revenge and mission to save these victims will this
quest be realized or will Josh be eliminated?
One thing I love about the book is how
Lloyd's writing is enriched with fully developed characters maybe, thanks to
his stint as a marine and also serving in the Vietnam war. This experience
brings out an intricately layered epic read which is immensely gripping and
full of twists and turns laced with some thrilling adventure. For any military
fiction fan, this read will make you dance with delight!
Enjoy this excerpt:
Never For Glory
Chapter Ten
The air inside the barn was blistering and
smelled of body waste and fear. From the beam where Josh squatted, he studied
the spot to land when he jumped. His target was the top of a heavy duty, mesh
pet crate holding one of the kidnaped teens. He estimated the distance to be
fourteen feet from the beam to the cage.
He’d counted enough children in the barn
for the C-130 transport to carry them out in one congested flight, without much
room left over. Their only break had been the fact that Bran hadn’t rigged the
beams, joists, and rafters under the barn’s roof with explosives.
After snipping two square holes through
the tin roof to expose the interior of the barn, Shani had used the
bomb-sniffing scanner to pinpoint the locations of all the explosives. Josh lay
prone on the roof beside the hole with only his head hanging inside, watching
her as she scampered back and forth on the rafters.
Every time she spotted a bomb location,
Shani glanced his way and pointed. She’d wait for his nod indicating he’d seen
it, too. It didn’t take long to discover that there was a predictable pattern,
that a perfectionist had rigged the explosives. The biggest, about five pounds
of C-4, was attached to the double barn doors. The way that cube of plastic was
rigged, once the door moved an inch or two, the explosive would blow.
The walls were rigged with one every meter
or so. Black coated electric wires ran through lag screw eyes screwed into wall
studs. The wires were about two feet off the dirt floor attached to fuses stuck
in what looked like one-pound blocks of plastic explosives.
The barn was fifty-two feet long and
thirty-six wide. He estimated there were thirty-six blocks of C-4. Jesus,
Bran, why the overkill? he thought. You are a demented anal maniac!
They hadn’t been equipped to discover the
wires from the outside. If they had cut through a wall instead of the roof,
that would’ve set all the bombs. If the explosion didn’t kill them, the spray
of splinter shrapnel from the barn’s structure as it disintegrated and the roof
collapsing would have shredded them. Every child would have been obliterated,
too.
Once Shani finished the search, they made
eye contact again. The only piece of the bushy camouflaged suit they did not
have on was the face masks. Shani nodded giving him the okay, and Josh pushed
off the beam and slid down the rope he’d rigged for the drop.
He was using a method known as an
Australian Rappel where a six-foot section of rope had been wrapped twice
around his waist, and the snap link was attached to the center of the small of
his back. To stop, all he had to do was raise the hand holding the waist rope
to his chest.
Halfway down, he stopped and hovered. With
an Uzi in the other hand, he moved in a lazy circle searching for targets,
someone waiting to ambush them. Finished, he made eye contact with Shani,
again, and nodded the all clear. She nodded back.
Because of all the explosives, they hadn’t
expected anyone to be inside to ambush them, but you never took anything for
granted.
Shani was on another beam closer to the
double barn doors. Before dropping, she put on her face mask. When she slipped
off her beam, she didn’t stop as he had. She slid all the way to her target
cage and braked just as she reached it so her feet barely made contact with the
top of the sturdy wire mesh. Then she gently lowered herself until she was
perched on the cage scanning the inside of the barn with her Uzi moving in
tandem with her eyes.
The rule was to check twice just in case
one of them missed something. When she finished her silent inspection, she
nodded.
That was his signal to put on the face
mask and drop the rest of the way. Moments later he squatted on top of a cage
looking through the metal grid at the painfully bent back of a slender girl.
She didn’t have enough room to turn her head to see what had landed on her
cramped prison cell. He heard her whimper but some of the teens in their cages
watched, their eyes glued on him and on Shani.
He saw Shani place an index finger in a
stay quiet gesture where her lips were hidden inside the mask. She also held
out her Uzi so the kids could see the weapon.
Josh did the same thing and made sure
every eye watching him saw the gesture for silence and the weapon. Eyes that
had been filled with misery and fear now reflected a spark of hope.
He scanned for surveillance cameras inside
the barn and counted ten. He knew that Shani was doing the same. Every portion
of the interior of the barn’s floor area was under observation. There were no
blind spots. If the cameras were hardwired and linked to a remote location, the
watcher might trigger the explosives and blow up the barn.
About Lloyd Lofthouse
Multi award winning author, Lloyd Lofthouse is a former US Marine (1965—1968) and combat vet managing PTSD. After the Marines, he went to college and earned a BA in journalism and later an MFA. After working as a nightclub maître d, he taught English and journalism in a public high school. For his first published novel, My Splendid Concubine, Lloyd visited mainland China several times to learn more about that country’s people, culture, and history.
He’s the author of the award-winning novels My Splendid Concubine, Running with the Enemy, The Redemption of Don Juan Casanova, and the memoir Crazy is Normal, a classroom exposé. His short story, A Night at the Well of Purity was named a finalist in the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards.
Websites: http://lloydlofthouse.org/ & https://thesoulfulveteran.com/ 
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Thanks so much for hosting! I am so glad Gud Reader enjoyed 'Never For Glory' so much!
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