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Rifle rounds followed Bolan

They kicked up dirt and grass all around him, lodging in the tree trunk as he popped back to his feet behind the pine tree.

Bolan stared in the moonlight, following the angle of the shots back to a man who stood partially out of the guard shack, wielding an M-16.

He aimed, pulled the trigger of his gun and sent two rounds into the guard’s shoulder, causing him to drop his weapon. A look of shock covered the man’s face for an instant before Bolan squeezed the trigger again, and the man fell out of the shack onto the pavement.

Bolan leaned out from around the tree trunk and sighted down the barrel. A lone round took out the second man at the gate. The third sentry was still hiding inside the small building, covered from the waist down by concrete but visible through the glass in the top of the window.

He aimed at the man’s head and pulled the trigger. His slug struck the glass then ricocheted off with a loud whine. The window was bullet resistant—but nothing was completely bullet proof.

Bolan left the cover of the tree and raced toward the open door of the shack. The final sentry was squatting with his gun in hand, looking straight at him as Bolan fired his weapon. In the end, all of the concrete and bullet-resistant glass in the world hadn’t helped him, and the guard fell on his face just as dead as the others.

The yard grew silent. Then, in the distance, Bolan heard sirens and he knew that the fighting had raised alarms.

The Executioner had to get away. Fast.

Damage Radius

The Executioner^®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

The laws are silent in the midst of arms.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero

106 BC–43 BC

I will go around the law to catch the bad guys, if I have to. And I will break the law to stop them, if all else fails. I will do what needs to get done—whenever, wherever, however.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

1

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, lowered his left elbow slightly, stopping a right jab to the ribs from his left-handed opponent. He countered with a quick right cross which was also blocked. Slowly, the two men circled, sizing each other up and looking for weaknesses in the other’s defense. A fierce left hook came suddenly toward the Executioner’s face but he ducked under it, bobbing slightly to the side. In his mind, it registered that the southpaw he faced had dropped his left shoulder before delivering the blow. As well, Bolan realized the man had telegraphed the hook the same way each time he’d tried that punch.

The left hook was obviously the man’s favored attack, and the pressure Bolan had felt when it landed on his arms told him it was powerful. Full of strength, and speed, the man could easily knock out an opponent if it landed solidly.

So, the soldier decided, it was time to set the man up and take advantage of his “tell.”

Bolan backed away slightly, letting his opponent move closer. He ducked a wild right-handed “haymaker,” then bobbed under another jab that followed it. Then, intentionally raising his left, he opened up his rib cage for the hook he hoped to draw from the other man.

It worked as if by magic.

Sweat poured from the other man’s face as he dipped his shoulder in preparation to launch the hook.

Bolan didn’t give him the chance. Stepping in swiftly, he dealt his opponent a powerful overhand right, which nailed the man squarely in the middle of the forehead. The man stumbled backward. Bolan shuffled closer again, jabbing a left into the man’s midsection, which caused him to drop both of his hands.

It was time to end this fight.

Bolan put everything he had—arm, shoulder and a twist of the right hip—into the right cross.

His opponent was out before his face hit the canvas.

Quickly, Bolan stepped forward, saw that the man was breathing, then turned toward the ropes that encircled the boxing ring. Everyone else in the gym had halted their workouts in order to watch the match, and they stared up at Bolan with a mixture of surprise and newfound respect in their eyes. Bolan walked to the edge of the ring and rested his gloved hands on the top rope.

“Okay,” he said. “I know you guys liked the former manager of this gym. I did, too. But he’s dead, and there’s nothing any of us can do about that.” He paused, then motioned toward the unconscious man on the floor. “Jake, here, challenged me because all of you wanted to know if I knew what I was doing.” He turned his head to include more men who had come to the ring on the other sides of the canvas. “Is there anyone here still wondering?” When there was no response from the spectators, Bolan went on. “Come on. I’m just getting warmed up. If there’s anyone else who wants a piece of me, now’s your chance.”

The silence that had fallen over the gym didn’t change, and no one took the Executioner up on his offer.

It soon became obvious that there would be no more challengers. “Then get back to your training, all of you,” he said. Lifting the top rope, he stepped under it before dropping to the gym’s concrete floor. Using his teeth, he untied the lace on his right glove, then pulled it free and tucked it under his arm as he went to work on the left.

As he began unlacing the other glove, Bolan’s eyes skirted the gym, taking in the men of various ages, sizes and abilities who had returned to the speed bags, heavy bags, double ended striking balls, jump ropes and other equipment. Most of them were innocent, honest fighters who were doing nothing more than trying to achieve their own personal dreams of success in the ring. But, unknowingly, they were actually part of one of the most extensive criminal organizations operating in the United States.

The Executioner eyed them again as he wiped a single drop of sweat from his brow with his forearm. This was only the starting point for the mission he had undertaken. And he was certain to engage in many more fights as he worked his way toward the goal of taking down Tommy McFarley’s criminal organization.

But there was one point about the fight he had just won that stood out in the Executioner’s mind as unique.

It was likely to be the only skirmish with rules, without weapons and without blood.

The Executioner was going to war yet again.

2

As the rat-tat-tat of the speed bags filled his ears like machine-gun fire, Bolan walked from the ring to the glass wall of his new office. Tossing the gloves he had just removed to a man on his way to the water fountain, he pushed the door open and left the gym proper. Through the glass, he could still hear the speed bags, the crunching of the canvas bags and the tapping of jump ropes as the door swung closed behind him.

The Executioner looked at his desk as he moved toward it. It was cluttered with the personal effects of Sy Lennon, the former manager of McFarley’s New Orleans gym. But Lennon would not be back to collect them.

He, along with a middleweight named Bobby “the Killer” Kiethley, was dead. Their bodies had not yet been found, and Bolan suspected they never would be.

The rumor was that three of Tommy McFarley’s henchmen had dropped them out of one of McFarley’s private aircraft somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico. Their crime? Not throwing a fight that McFarley had “fixed,” and upon which he had consequently lost close to a million dollars in bets.

Bolan spied an empty cardboard box thrown carelessly into the corner of the office and quickly retrieved it. Without ceremony, he used his forearm to sweep the desktop clear. Papers, paperweights, a brass clip in the shape of a whale and a small plastic “Snoopy” wearing boxing gloves fell into the box. Returning the carton to the corner of the room, the Executioner dropped it and took a seat behind the desk.

For a moment, he stared out through the glass at the men still working out in the gym. New Orleans was the center of McFarley’s operations, but his chain of boxing and body-building/power-lifting gyms stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They were the “front,” and the money-laundering operations, for his real businesses, which included international drug trafficking, arms dealing, gambling and white-slavery prostitution throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Bolan glanced at the scarred black rotary telephone that was now the sole object on his desk. It was a throwback to an earlier era, and the chances of it being tapped by McFarley were slim. Still, there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks, so the soldier leaned down to the gym bag he had dropped by the desk chair when he’d first arrived a few hours earlier. Fishing through the clothing and other contents, he found a smaller, zippered bag that contained both cell and satellite phones. Choosing the cell, he pulled it from the bag and tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm, the top-secret U.S. site that fielded counterterrorist teams and trained specially picked soldiers and police officers from America and its allied nations. The call was automatically routed through a number of cutout numbers on three continents on the offchance that someone—someone like McFarley—had stumbled onto the frequency.

Barbara Price, the Farm’s mission controller, answered the phone. “Hello, Striker,” she said. “How’s training?”

Bolan chuckled softly. “Barely worked up a sweat yet,” he told the beautiful honey-blonde. He pictured her briefly in his mind. He and Price had a “special relationship” reserved for those rare occasions during which he was out of the field and spent the night at the Farm. But both were true professionals, and they never allowed that relationship to interfere with their work. “Had to prove myself a few minutes ago,” Bolan went on.

“I doubt it lasted a full round,” Price said.

“About a minute or so,” the soldier replied. “I didn’t see any reason to show off.” He paused, then got to the point of the call. “Can you buzz me through to Hal?”

“I could,” Price said. “But it wouldn’t do you much good. He’s at Justice today.”

Hal Brognola wore two hats. In one role, he was the director of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm. But in another, he was a high-ranking official within the U.S. Department of Justice. “I’ll call him there, then,” Bolan told Price.

“Good luck and be careful.”

“Always,” he said and ended the call.

A moment later he had dialed the numbers to the big Fed’s direct line at the Justice Department. A gruff voice answered. “Brognola.”

“Striker here.”

“Hello, big guy,” Hal Brognola said after turning on the scrambler. “How’s the new job?”

“Terrific,” Bolan answered. “If you like starting at the bottom. I’m in, but I’m still a long way from McFarley’s real action. Unless we can figure out a way to speed things up, it’s going to take me a lifetime to get next to the man.”

“You haven’t met McFarley, himself, yet, have you?” Brognola asked.

“No,” Bolan said. “I was interviewed and got hired by one of his goons. It seems the big man doesn’t dirty himself with small jobs like hiring gym managers.”

“Well,” Brognola said, “I’ve got something else working right now that ought to lead to a meeting. The same undercover DEA agent who’s managing McFarley’s gym in Cleveland—the guy I went through to get you in there in New Orleans—has let a few things ‘slip’ about your less-than-spotless past. It shouldn’t take long for loose lips to reach McFarley’s ears that you’ve run both guns and dope in the past, and that you’re just trying to keep a low profile by managing boxers for a while.”

“Your DEA man in Cleveland,” Bolan asked. “How much does he know?”

“Not much. He’s a good man. He understands the need-to-know concept and realizes he doesn’t need to know anything past recommending you, alias ‘Matt Cooper’ of course, for the New Orleans job.”

“You think this rumor-passing stunt is going to work?” Bolan asked.

“I think so,” Brognola said. “Guys like McFarley are always on the lookout for men with Matt Cooper’s experience.”

A tap on the glass door to his office caused Bolan to look up. When he did, he saw a man wearing striped overalls and a tool belt, with a paint can in his hand. Bolan knew what he was there to do, and he nodded.

The man in the overalls set the can down, pulled a razor-bladed paint scraper from his tool belt and began scraping Sy Lennon’s name off the glass door. In its place, he would paint Bolan’s undercover ID—Matt Cooper.

“Okay,” Bolan said, turning his attention back to the phone. “I guess all I can do right now is wait.”

“It shouldn’t take long,” Brognola came back.

Without further words, Bolan disconnected the line.

He looked up again just in time to see a blurry form through the glass. It shoved the man in the overalls aside and pushed through the door.

Jake Jackson, the fighter the Executioner had KO’d only a few minutes earlier, strode angrily into the office. A cotton ball was shoved into his left nostril and flecks of dried blood still stuck to the skin around his nose. A welt was forming on his forehead between his eyes, and while he’d lost the boxing gloves from his hands, dirty-white tape was still wrapped around his palm and wrists.

“Something more I can help you with, Jake?” Bolan said as he set down the cell phone.

“Yeah,” the man across the desk said. His lips were curved down in an angry frown, and his eyes shot daggers through Bolan. “I don’t like getting whipped by a trainer,” he growled.

Bolan glanced at the man’s midsection. He was a heavyweight, but there was a thin layer of fat covering his abdominal muscles. “I don’t blame you,” the soldier said. “So if I was you I’d train harder, drink less beer and get into fighting shape.”

The words only angered the man further. “I grew up here,” he said in a heavy Cajun accent. “In the back streets of the French Quarter.” He paused and eyed Bolan even harder. “And I can’t help but think there’d be a much different outcome if you and I were to fight without gloves and rules.” By this point Jackson had inched his way around the side of Bolan’s desk.

The soldier swiveled slowly in his chair to face him. “There’s only one way to find out, Jake,” he said with a pleasant smile on his face.

The heavyweight lunged suddenly with both hands aimed at Bolan’s throat. Still seated, the Executioner flicked his foot up and out, catching the other man squarely in the groin with the top of his flat-soled boxing shoes. The cup Jackson wore cushioned a lot of the blow, but not enough to keep him from grunting in surprise and pain.

As he rose from his chair, Bolan drove a forearm into the man’s face. Blood spurted from the heavyweight’s nose, shooting the cotton from his nostril like a tiny rocket and driving his head back upward. In his peripheral vision, Bolan saw that most of the other fighters had gathered around the glass front of the office to watch.

Jackson had obviously announced his intentions to “teach Matt Cooper a lesson” before he’d come into the office.

Bolan reached forward and clasped his hands together behind Jackson’s neck. As he bent the man forward again, he drove a knee upward into his belly in a classic Muay Thai movement. Dropping his foot to the ground, he lifted his other knee and struck the groin area again.

By now, Jackson’s plastic cup had cracked in two. And with the third knee strike, the fighter’s groan became a scream.

Bolan stepped back and drove the same right cross into the man’s chin that had knocked him out in the ring.

The effect was the same, and Jackson fell to the floor next to the desk.

Bolan didn’t hesitate. Grabbing a handful of the man’s sweaty hair with his left hand, he dragged him back around the desk and opened the door with his other hand. Then, pushing the unconscious man through the doorway, he let him fall on his face against the concrete.

The Executioner looked up. “I’m getting sick of this,” he told the stunned fighters who had watched the encounter. “How many times do I have to knock this guy out? Let’s get it all over with right now. I beat him in the ring, with rules. And I just beat him in a streetfight, without rules. Does anybody want to wrestle? Karate? Judo? Maybe do a little head-on tackling practice like in football?” He paused to let his words sink in. “Like I said, I’m through proving myself. If any of the rest of you want to fight, in any way you want, step up now.” He paused again because he knew his next words would fall on the ears of his audience as the most important. “But I’m warning you,” he finally said. “The next time, I’m going to kill my challenger.”

The gym grew even more silent than it had been earlier.

Finally, a man who looked to be around welterweight size stepped forward. He had the coffee-colored skin of the true Creole, and was wearing sweatpants and bag gloves. He smiled at Bolan, then turned to face the other men. “I think it’s high time we welcomed Mr. Cooper as our new manager,” he said.

The rest of the heads nodded. Some enthusiastically, others grudgingly. But one way or another, they all affirmed Bolan’s leadership.

The soldier nodded back to them also, then turned back into his office. A door at the rear of the room led to the small sleeping quarters that had served as Lennon’s home, and would temporarily house the Executioner—at least during the beginning of this mission.

Just before he stepped into the small bedroom, Bolan glanced back over his shoulder.

The men around the gym were working out even harder than before. And the painter in the striped overalls was just beginning the second T in the name “Matt Cooper.”

3

The call on the black rotary phone came just after the Executioner had ushered the last fighter out of the gym and locked the door behind him. Hearing it through the glass, he hustled around the ring in the center of the room, past a series of heavy bags and striking balls, and through the glass door into the office. “Cooper,” he said as he pressed the old-fashioned receiver to his ear.

“How am I supposed to book fighters if you keep beating them up?” a laughing voice on the other end of the line asked in a thick Irish brogue.

Bolan knew it had to be McFarley. The man had immigrated to America from Northern Ireland, and still had his accent. But since it had been one of his underlings who had actually hired “Matt Cooper” to manage the gym, the Executioner pretended not to recognize the voice. “Who is this?” he asked.

“Your boss,” McFarley said. “Your employer. Tommy McFarley, boyo.”

“Well,” Bolan said, “it’s nice to finally talk to you.”

“Did you have a specific conversational topic in mind, laddie?” McFarley said.

“Yeah,” Bolan said. “How about a raise?”

McFarley laughed again. “I think I’m going to like you, Matt Cooper,” he said. “You’ve got balls. But I hear you nearly left one of my heavyweights without his this afternoon.”

“He was asking for it,” Bolan replied.

“I know that particular fighter, and I have no doubt that was the case,” McFarley said. “But that’s not what I called about. A little bird told me there’s more to you than just being a cauliflower-eared pug. You seem to have quite a résumé which you didn’t mention to my man who hired you.”

“It didn’t seem relevant,” Bolan said. “Besides, I’m trying to fly under the radar for the time being.”

“When you’re with me there’s no radar problem,” McFarley said. “I’ve got more radar detectors than Radio Shack.”

“Great,” Bolan said. “So…did you just want to remind me of how wonderful I am? Or is there some other reason behind this call?’

Yet again, McFarley burst into laughter. “You’re a bold one, you are,” he said. “I like that in a man.” Then he stopped speaking, and when he started again his voice was far less jovial. “Up to a point.”

Bolan remained silent.

“I’d like you to come join me for a late dinner,” McFarley said.

“When?” the Executioner asked.

“Tonight,” McFarley said. “I’m about to send a limo to pick you up right now. Can you be ready in thirty minutes?”

“Give me forty-five,” Bolan said. “I’ve got to take a shower and change clothes.

“Forty-five it is then, laddie,” the New Orleans crime kingpin said. “I look forward to meeting you.”

Bolan heard the line click dead in his ear.

The Executioner looked at his watch as he walked back into his room. There was a small private bathroom attached, and he stepped into it, unlaced his high-topped boxing shoes, then stripped off the plain gray sweatshirt and gym shorts he’d been wearing with them. A moment later he had the shower running and warming up.

Bolan brushed his teeth, gargled, then glanced at his face. He had a five-o’clock shadow, but he decided to let it go. Tommy McFarley might be rich, but classy, he wasn’t. And besides, the unshaved look seemed to be in fashion among the fighters at the gym and other young men he’d seen around lately.

Bolan showered quickly, then went to the short clothes-bar that ran the length of one side of the small room. He had moved in just that morning, and from the hangers he’d hung below the bar he pulled a navy-blue polo shirt, a pair of light tan slacks and a light brown sport coat, placing them on the bed as he pulled on plain white underwear and dark blue socks. The shirt and slacks went on next, then he stepped into a well-worn pair of brown loafers.

Reaching under the bed, the Executioner slid out a black, hard plastic case. A combination lock secured the case, and he dialed in the combination before opening the lid. Lifting the Beretta 93-R with the attached sound suppressor and the.44 Magnum Desert Eagle, he stared at the two weapons.

They had killed more men than he could remember. But all who had fallen to their rounds had deserved death, and more. A shoulder holster for the Beretta with two extra magazines on the other end of the straps, and a Concealex plastic hip holster that fit the Desert Eagle rested just under the guns. Bolan placed both weapons and their carriers to the side.

There would be a time for them, and the even heavier armament he had brought with him on this mission, later.

Lifting the bumpy foam rubber padding on which the guns had rested, Bolan dug through a variety of smaller pistols and knives on the layer below. His eyebrows lowered as he made his decisions, finally pulling out the stubby North American Arms Pug and a Cold Steel Espada folding knife. The minute single-action Pug revolver brought a faint smile to the Executioner’s lips. The name seemed ironically appropriate for a man managing a boxing club. It held five rounds of .22 Magnum ammunition and was the best last-ditch backup he had ever found. It was smaller, and packed a better punch than the larger .22 LR or .25-caliber automatic guns on the market. Especially loaded as it was with hollowpoint bullets.

The Espada folding knife was a true blend of ancient Spanish tradition and modern technology. Patterned after the huge folding navajas that had been used in Spain for centuries—the newer Cold Steel version featured a “hook” opener at the base of the blade that allowed it to be drawn and opened on a pocket or waistband. It could be put into use faster than any switchblade, and when a natural front grip was taken, the nearly eight-inch blade had the reach of an eleven-inch bowie knife.

It was, quite simply, the finest folding fighting knife available.

Bolan clipped the Espada inside his waistband, against his kidney, then stared at the little .22 Magnum revolver in the palm of his left hand. He suspected that he’d be frisked before being allowed into this first meeting with McFarley, and he had no intention of disappointing whoever drew the job. He expected the Espada to be found, and was willing to sacrifice it as a diversion from the small firearm. But he also wanted to impress McFarley with his ability to move clandestinely through the search, and so he shoved the Pug down the front of his pants and placed it just under his groin between his underwear and slacks.

It would be painfully slow to retrieve from that position, but Bolan didn’t expect any gunplay during this initial meeting with his target.

On this night, the NAA Pug .22 Magnum revolver would be more for show than fighting.

The Executioner shrugged into his sport coat, grabbed his key ring from the top of the shabby wooden dresser in the tiny sleeping room, then moved back through the gym toward the front door.

The long black limousine pulled up to the curb as he locked the gym from the outside. The chauffer hurried out and opened the back door for him.

Without a word, Bolan slid inside.

MCFARLEY HAD GROWN UP ON a small farm near Bushmill, Northern Ireland, which was the home of the world’s oldest whiskey distillery—Old Bushmills. As a boy, he had worked the farm, sowing and reaping many of the grains that went into the whiskey being fermented only a few miles away. If he had learned one thing during that time, it was that the Bible was correct when it said, “That which you sow, so shall ye reap.”

And as far as McFarley was concerned, that meant you reaped very little for the amount of backbreaking sowing that went into farming.

The Irishman sat back against his desk chair and glanced around the walls of his office. The wooden paneling was of the finest smooth cedar, and sent a soothing fragrance into the air of the room. The photographs and other documents that spotted the walls were framed in solid gold and silver. His desk was of the purest mahogany and teak. The fact was, everything in the room was the best money could buy.

But that money sure hadn’t come from farming.

McFarley chuckled to himself as he dropped his desk phone back into its cradle. It would be a good hour still before Matt Cooper arrived for dinner, and he had only one other duty on his agenda that needed to be taken care of before the man arrived. The men with whom he needed to meet were already waiting for him in the outer office with his secretary, but the Irishman decided to let them wait a bit longer. They all needed to sweat a little, wondering exactly why they’d been called in to see him. So, while he let their anxiety rise, McFarley decided to take a few minutes to reminisce.

The Irishman let his mind drift back to his teenage days in Northern Ireland, when his only interests were boxing and women—not necessarily in that order. He had won Ireland’s golden gloves heavyweight division four years running, then opened his own gym. But it had been around that time when he’d also gotten involved with the then very active PIRA— Provisional Irish Republican Army—the last faction of the IRA to quit bombing and shooting the British invaders. His interest in the organization, however, had not been political. He had found that more money could be made in one evening of smuggling guns, dynamite and C-4 or Semtax plastic explosives than he made in a year at his gym. Drug smuggling had come as a natural extension to his business, which meant even more money. And more money meant more women, so soon he had established a successful “call girl” service to supplement both his own seemingly insatiable urge for sex and his overall income.

It was about that time that Tommy McFarley realized just how small Northern Ireland really was. And that realization spawned his interest in immigrating to the U.S.

A frown crossed McFarley’s face as he remembered his first attempts to gain his green card. It had not been as easy as he would have expected, since Great Britain was not considered to be a repressive nation—even to the Northern Irish. But a few clandestinely taken photos of a U.S. congressman visiting London—engaging in some rather unusual sex acts with two of McFarley’s women—had convinced the man to push the Irishman’s immigration papers through personally. And he had passed his citizenship test five years later with flying colors.