Dave Riley Series by Bob Mayer

Dave Riley and his Green Beret A-Team must defeat a threat shockingly inhuman. Set in the shadowy world of genetic research, Synbat, stands for Synthetic Battle form. The research is conducted at a lab in the deep woods of western Tennessee, under the Pentagon's secret Black Budget, is Top Secret. Until the subjects of the experiment escape. The Synbats are now roaming the countryside, acting out what they were designed to do: kill. Riley and his team are called in for 'damage control... moreDave Riley and his Green Beret A-Team must defeat a threat shockingly inhuman. Set in the shadowy world of genetic research, Synbat, stands for Synthetic Battle form. The research is conducted at a lab in the deep woods of western Tennessee, under the Pentagon's secret Black Budget, is Top Secret. Until the subjects of the experiment escape. The Synbats are now roaming the countryside, acting out what they were designed to do: kill. Riley and his team are called in for 'damage control.' Easier said than done. They follow the deadly trail to Chicago, where long abandoned tunnels are a lair for the Synbats to do what could well spell the end of mankind: procreate at incredible speed. It's a race against time as Riley must destroy mankind's greatest threat-- our own genes spliced with that of another species. less

Maverick federal employee Sammy Pintella, obsessed with uncovering the fate of her MIA father, makes a startling discovery while rifling through some inactive government files. A dozen faded, old black and white photographs seem to prove the existence of a secret U.S. military base built in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica during the height of the Vietnam War... moreMaverick federal employee Sammy Pintella, obsessed with uncovering the fate of her MIA father, makes a startling discovery while rifling through some inactive government files. A dozen faded, old black and white photographs seem to prove the existence of a secret U.S. military base built in the frozen wasteland of Antarctica during the height of the Vietnam War. With her sister Conner, a Satellite News Network reporter looking for a big story, Sammy sets out to find the answers: What was a Special Forces MACV-SOG unit, supposedly operating in Vietnam, doing in Antarctica? Why has the existence of this base remained top secret for more than 25 years? Is there a link between the secret base and the equally mysterious disappearance of their father? Aided by ex-Special Forces officer Dave Riley, Sammy and Conner, with the blessing of her news network's flamboyant president, head for Antarctica to track down the mysterious military installation called Eternity Base. Caught between Sammy's fixation and Conner's career ambition, Riley's job becomes keeping them all alive - to tell the secret of Eternity Base. Riley and the two sisters, engaged in a classic struggle of survival against the elements, must not only endure in the harshest weather on the planet, but must also stop a foreign commando unit sent to steal the secret hidden beneath the ice. less

Although retired from the US Army, Dave Riley is not out of the action as he battles crafty villains and a deadly pestilence in southwestern Africa in this sixth installment of Mayer's absorbing and well-written series (Cut-Out, 1995, etc.)... moreAlthough retired from the US Army, Dave Riley is not out of the action as he battles crafty villains and a deadly pestilence in southwestern Africa in this sixth installment of Mayer's absorbing and well-written series (Cut-Out, 1995, etc.). Now a civilian security specialist hired to protect Satellite News Network correspondent Conner Young, the ex-Special Forces warrant officer accompanies his comely charge to Angola, where she's covering a multinational mission to end the civil strife that's racked the onetime Portuguese colony since it gained independence in 1975. After overrunning rebel strongholds and establishing a base camp along the Zairean border, the Green Berets in the UN's vanguard are stopped cold by the outbreak of a virulent plague. Quarantined with Conner and a handful of soldiers who have also been exposed to whatever's in the air, Dave apprehensively follows the unavailing attempts of epidemiologists who have been flown in from the States to deal with the highly contagious disease they refer to as ``Z.'' Released from hot-zone confinement to escort the medical team on a fact-finding mission, he helps determine that man, not nature, has unleashed the lethal virus. With an assist from the National Security Agency, American commanders soon identify the likely culprit as Pieter Van Wyks, head of the syndicate that effectively controls the world's diamond trade. Aware that the avaricious mining magnate has stockpiled vaccine that can reverse the invariably fatal course of Z, the Pentagon details Dave to lead a small band of nothing-left-to-lose troopers in an airborne assault on the cartel's strongly defended headquarters on the Namibian coast. Though on his last legs and facing die-hard adversaries, the old soldier will manage to beat the odds. A ripping good biotech/military thriller that plausibly depicts the high costs (psychological and otherwise) of combating unseen enemies. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.This military action thriller set in the war-torn jungles of Africa, finds SF veteran Riley on the most dangerous mission of his life. less