John Buckner

Rolling Thunder John Buckner

The year is 1967 and the U. S. is becoming more involved in the War in Vietnam as the month's pass. The U. S. instigates a bombing campaign to interdict the supply of North Vietnamese troops in the Southern part of the country. They do this by heavy air raids on the primary route the NVA uses for that purpose. The route is called the Ho Chi Mihn Trail. The code name for the effort is called Rolling Thunder and the U. S. employs B-52 bombers for the effort. Somehow the North Vietnamese are receiving advanced warning about the location of the raids, thereby allowing their convoy's to evacuate the area until after the bombs fall. U. S. assets in the area reporting on the damage the bombing campaign is causing report this and the U. S. Command has to find the security leak. Lieutenant John Newell, a navy counter-intelligence officer, is assigned the task of rooting out the spy. This he does in very short order, discovering a leak at the Pentagon Communications Center. But espionage is only the tip of the iceberg. In a convoluted way the targeting data is being exchanged for drugs and the drugs are being delivered to the U. S. in government shipments. The action moves from Washington, D. C., to San Francisco, and then to the Far East as the Lieutenant and his team back track the drugs to shut down the pipeline.