Rudi Kingsbridge

The son of a high-flying businessman and Hollywood actress, Rudi was born into a one hundred year dynasty rotten to its core: built on murder, corruption, deceit, adultery, bribery, extortion and extreme violence. It meant playing happy families was never a realistic option. Like every Kingsbridge before him, he was told that when he saw something he wanted, he should go get it, no matter what the cost or who got hurt. In Vietnam, he set aside his enmity with Michael McBride long enough to put the advice to the test. He didn’t lose any sleep over it. Conscience was never a problem to Rudi Kingsbridge; he didn’t have one. The media said he had it all. He was outrageously handsome, irresistible to women, a billionaire banker and married to a supermodel. So it looked as if it was true but it also meant he had more to lose than most.

Frankie Fernando

Frankie’s depressed childhood stuck to him like an unwanted rash, over seven years in Southeast Asia confirming his progression to full-on manic depressive. Although his courage won him a Medal of Honor, Frankie knew he was no hero. He’d been a leader of men and how he wished he’d led differently. But he hadn’t. The experience turned him into a drunken hobo but as king of Cardboard City, he was no ordinary hobo. Despite having the respect of the unrespectable, Frankie hated himself, hated his weakness; loathed his guilt. He knew the wine was killing him but he didn’t care; until the magazine appeared, he had nothing to live for. American Dream’s arrival on the news-stands changed everything. Suddenly, he could see the global stage beckoning and perhaps, even more importantly, he saw the opportunity to dream that maybe, just maybe, he could right the wrong.

Michael McBride

As the grandson of the legendary Fergus McBride, doing the right thing was in Michael’s genes. But when death robbed him of his Granddad, his life didn’t so much as go off the rails as crash into a brick wall. Violence became the currency of his life. After a ten years in the wilderness, five of which he spent in the military, he finally went home, returning like a biblical prodigal son. Going home was the first of several good choices, the family hopeful he can finally fulfil his destiny, of walking in the footsteps of a legend. But it can never be; because the dark shadow - the shame and the guilt - will never allow it. Though blissfully happy and confident in the present, Michael McBride is haunted by a past he’d hoped had gone away. It hadn’t. And it wouldn’t. And even worse, what was coming would mean he’d have to share oxygen with Rudi Kingsbdridge all over again.

Eugene Sanders

Black, poor and in jail for manslaughter, Eugene persuaded the Young Offenders Restitution Board to cut short his sentence on condition he go to Vietnam. For four years he lived life on the edge. He loved every minute, feeding off the adrenaline rush it gave him. When it was over, it left a huge void in his life, not even his fanatical obsession with body-building able to fill the hole. But he’d never believed in happy ever after, thought it the stuff of fairy-tales. Eugene was the ultimate survivor who’d learned to live with his circumstances, middle-age easing the sense of loss and the fact he’d seen things he wished he hadn’t seen and worst of all, he’d done things he wished he hadn’t done. But life’s a bitch and then you die. It was Eugene’s motto for a dog-eat-dog world.

General Matthew Kedenberg

The slightly sinister Washington based General was as much politican as military man. It was Kedenberg who gave O’Donnell the green light to form Bleeding Dog Company and it was him that insisted the team take on their last mission when O’Donnell and Miller thought it ill-advised.   

Lieutenant William T. O’Donnell

A Korean War hero and lifelong military man, O’Donnell was something of a legendary figure in Vietnam’s secret war, the Mr. Fixit of Southeast Asia’s black ops community. Based at Command Control Central in Kontum, O’Donnell reported directly to Washington: to the shadowy General Matthew Kedenberg. The formation of Bleeding Dog Company was O’Donnell’s idea. He saw it as an opportunity to realise a long-held vision for a kind of All-Star team – the blackest of black ops - capable of pulling off missions others couldn’t even dream about.

Master Sergeant Doug Miller

Doug Miller, O’Donnell’s confidante and the team’s hands-on trainer, was colourful and secretive, a warrior to his bootlaces. He was also something of a miracle: his last thirty-two years on Earth lived out as a dead man. Listed as “KIA, Central Highlands Vietnam, October 1967”, his name was even engraved on the DC War Memorial, despite the Grim Reaper not coming for him till 31^st December 1999. Even in death he was thinking of life in the military and thinking of his beloved Bleeding Dogs. Inside, he was in agony; his shrunken liver, poisoned by years of alcohol abuse, finally imploding in on itself. But he suffered in silence, keeping one of his golden rules of life in the process; never let the sons of bitches know how much you’re hurting.

Mai-Ly, Minh Ngoc, Bian Nhu Dinh, Tong Tenh and baby, Nguyen Thimay.

The most tragic of families: blown apart through no fault of their own.  Bian, a stunningly beautiful fifteen year-old, is gang raped. Her mother Minh is mercilessly murdered and the matriarchal Mai-Ly, her grandmother, brutally assaulted. They are three generations of Laotian women in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unbeknown to Bleeding Dog Company, Bian’s little brother Tong Tenh is hiding in nearby rocks and witnesses the entire incident. Bian falls pregnant. It puts the entire family in mortal danger. The baby will be white or black but not Laotian, with Bian assumed to have had an affair with an American GI, committing the cardinal sin: collaboration with the enemy. Within weeks of the baby’s birth, Bian and Mai-Ly flee to Vietnam and Saigon, meeting Troy, a young American diplomat along the way. When the NVA lay siege to Saigon, Bian and the baby are allowed on the helicopters but Mai-Ly is denied access to the Embassy. It’s another devastating event for the family, every one of them innocent victims of lust; lust so fleeting it was satisfied in minutes but so potent it could sustain a life-time’s agony. It did.

Troy P. Templeman

Troy is Diplomatic Attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon when he and Bian meet at a hospital in Pleiku, Vietnam. He falls head-over-heels in love, instantly, and helps her get to Saigon. Two years later, they’re evacuated and flown to the United States, to Troy’s parent’s home in Florida. Troy’s two key character traits are commitment and manipulation and he brings both to bear on Bian, eventually persuading her to marry him. But there’s no real connection; there’s something in the way. Troy becomes a successful lawyer, but as the years pass, he feels increasingly disenchanted with his marriage. He and Bian separate. She leaves for Laos and Troy goes after her. By the riverbank where it all happened, she finally tells him the truth. He is devastated. It transforms their relationship but Troy’s life is dominated by one thought, the V word: vengeance. He dedicates his life to pursuing the four men. He wants them found and brought to justice. And then he wants to watch the jailer throw away the key.