Survival mission, p.1
Survival Mission, page 1
Another muzzle-flash from the pursuit car—the shot went wild
The hunters didn’t give a damn about potential bystanders. Professionals. Nothing but victory or death would stop them.
Except, Bolan was determined they wouldn’t win.
Which left one option.
He had to find a killing ground that minimized the prospect of collateral damage. There, he’d make a stand and see what came of it. If he could—
Suddenly another pair of headlights glared from behind the chase car.
Reinforcements maybe? If that were true, there could be anywhere from two to five, or even six guns in the second vehicle. The odds against survival might have just doubled.
But Bolan had beaten worse odds in the past and walked away. Even if death was certain for himself, he would fight until his last round had been fired, then take it hand to hand.
The hunting party’s scarred survivors would not soon forget their meeting with the Executioner.
MACK BOLAN®
The Executioner
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#340 Splinter Cell
#341 Rebel Force
#342 Double Play
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#355 Outback Assault
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#360 Mission to Burma
#361 Final Resort
#362 Patriot Acts
#363 Face of Terror
#364 Hostile Odds
#365 Collision Course
#366 Pele’s Fire
#367 Loose Cannon
#368 Crisis Nation
#369 Dangerous Tides
#370 Dark Alliance
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#372 Lethal Compound
#373 Code of Honor
#374 System Corruption
#375 Salvador Strike
#376 Frontier Fury
#377 Desperate Cargo
#378 Death Run
#379 Deep Recon
#380 Silent Threat
#381 Killing Ground
#382 Threat Factor
#383 Raw Fury
#384 Cartel Clash
#385 Recovery Force
#386 Crucial Intercept
#387 Powder Burn
#388 Final Coup
#389 Deadly Command
#390 Toxic Terrain
#391 Enemy Agents
#392 Shadow Hunt
#393 Stand Down
#394 Trial by Fire
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#397 Damage Radius
#398 Battle Cry
#399 Nuclear Storm
#400 Blind Justice
#401 Jungle Hunt
#402 Rebel Trade
#403 Line of Honor
#404 Final Judgment
#405 Lethal Diversion
#406 Survival Mission
Don Pendleton’s
The Executioner®
SURVIVAL MISSION
For Specialist Salvatore Augustine Giunta “Unwavering courage, selflessness and decisive leadership while under extreme enemy fire.” Korengal Valley, Afghanistan, 25 October 2007
And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
—Matthew 18:5–6
Forget about millstones. This time, the cleansing fire.
—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
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Prologue
The stranger was out of his element, running on animal rage and a vestige of hope that grew fainter with each hour’s passage. He didn’t know the city but could read a map. He didn’t speak the country’s foremost language but had drilled sufficiently in German and Russian as a younger man to get along. Locals would take him for a tourist if he didn’t push his luck too far, come down on them too hard.
That was the rough part, trying to act casual when every instinct he possessed was telling him to run amok and burn the goddamned city down if that was what it took to reach his goal. How many lives was he prepared to sacrifice in the pursuit of one he still held precious?
Pick a number. Any number. Were there seven billion people on the planet yet?
The only one that mattered was beyond his grasp so far, but he was getting closer.
He could feel it, with the ache inside that marked her loss.
He didn’t know if she was still alive, or what condition he would find her in, if she was. Had she been lost beyond all doubt, there would have been no reason for the marginal display of calm he somehow managed to project. Under those circumstances, he could have let his fury off its leash and slaughtered everyone he met, until he found the ones responsible.
And introduced them to a taste of living hell on earth.
But for the moment, he was still Joe Tourist, soaking up the sights, dropping an offhand question into conversation here and there. His face was not a memorable one; the mirror in his hotel room confirmed it. If he hit no panic buttons, sounded no alarms, he should be able to get closer.
Maybe even close enough.
The first real hurdle had been finding the specific tools he needed in a foreign city, but he’d managed. Anywhere you went, worldwide, the managers of seedy bars and brothels were the secretkeepers. Taxi drivers could direct you to the action for a fee, and once you wormed your way into the pulsing heart of decadence, debased yourself enough to rule out any thought that you might be an undercover cop, the only thing that mattered was the price tag.
Anyplace on earth, a man—or woman—with sufficient cash in hand could find the means of degradation or the weapons of destruction. Name your poison. If a twisted mind was able to conceive it, currency could make the nightmare real.
So he was armed, not necessarily as well as he’d have liked, but adequately. He could kill a small battalion if his luck held, and he clung to the advantage of surprise. They shouldn’t know that he was hunting them, not yet, but in the real world nothing could be taken on blind faith.
The arms dealer, for instance, would have underworld connections. Absolutely, beyond doubt. If he was talkative, told someone of the hardware he’d furnished to a foreigner—more to the point, a westerner—the ripples might begin to spread. Nothing that would identify the hunter yet, but once suspicion had been raised, the creatures dwelling in the city’s netherworld would be alert. Watching and listening, reporting back to someone at the center of the loathsome spiderweb.
It was the spider that he wanted. Maybe more than one. But he’d be satisfied to save the gnat they’d snared, if only he could rescue her unharmed.
But if he’d come too late, as he feared—if she had been defiled, or worse—the stranger reckoned that a life or two in recompense might not be satisfactory.
He’d hav e to wait and see, after he checked the address he’d obtained from a young woman of the streets. She hadn’t been insulted when he told her that seventeen or eighteen years placed her beyond the pale of his desires. In her profession, he supposed that she had heard and seen it all. Of course, he had to pay the normal hourly rate and more besides, but once the deal was struck she had been happy to oblige.
Or simply bored and sending one more pervert on his way.
Whatever.
Motive didn’t matter to the stranger. All that counted was the end result.
The street was named for some war hero of a bygone century who would have been forgotten, otherwise. He didn’t rate a statue, but they’d loaned his name to seven seedy blocks that boasted tattoo parlors, pawnshops, hot-sheet hotels and diners whose special was ptomaine roulette.
He’d spotted the red door, confirmed its street number. No sign on the filthy brick wall to explain what went on inside the three-story building. But then, he supposed, if you had this address there was no explanation required.
He rang the bell, waited and kept his face deadpan as someone scrutinized him through a peephole. Thirty seconds later the door opened to reveal a bullet-headed, no-neck slab of muscle in a pin-striped suit who glowered at the new arrival from behind an often-broken nose.
“Kdo jste?” he inquired. “Co chceš?”
Tone dictates meaning, and the stranger on the stoop replied in German.
“Ich bekam diese Adresse finden sie ein Mädchen.”
The man with the bullet-shaped head considered it, then stood aside. He switched to German.
“Hereinkommen.”
Stepping past him, waiting for the door to close, the stranger timed his move, drawing his pistol, turning on his heel to swing it as a bludgeon. But the target had already moved, a big fist looping toward the gunman’s face to strike him with explosive force. He fell, half-conscious, clinging to the pistol for a moment, until more men suddenly surrounded him and wrenched it from his grasp.
The man with the bullet-shaped head leaned close enough for drops of spittle to make impact as he spoke. English this time.
“You’re one dumb bastard, eh? Who helps your little girlie now?”
1
Prague, Czech Republic
The Vltava River winds through Prague’s heart like a bloated, indolent serpent, winding under eighteen bridges, gliding past squatting warehouses and spires of classic architecture, passing stately homes and tenements. At first glance it seems lazy, placid, but its name derives from the Old German phrase wilt ahwa—and it still claims lives and property from time to time, as when it overflowed its banks in August of 2002.
Mack Bolan watched a ferry pass beneath the Palackého Bridge, checking his watch, then turned away and crossed a nearby street on foot. Sparse traffic let him take his chances without blaring horns. Orange streetlights lit the bridge and avenue beyond, while side streets made do with old-fashioned lamps on the corners and whatever light spilled from windows or small neon signs.
It was a seedy neighborhood, not criminal per se, but savvy residents of Prague knew better than to walk its streets alone by night, if that could be avoided. Muggers and pickpockets were a problem in the Czech Republic’s capital and largest city, but they didn’t worry Bolan. If his size, attitude and the expression on his face did not dissuade such people, he was carrying an ALFA semiautomatic pistol—the Defender model, used by many Czech police and military officers—chambered in .40 S&W with a twelve-round magazine and one round in the chamber. Extra magazines were slotted into Bolan’s pockets, and he also carried a collapsible baton that added twenty inches to his normal reach.
His destination was a boxing gym called Oskar’s, situated half a block west of the the Palackého Bridge. He wasn’t looking for a sparring partner, and in fact was hoping that the place might already be closed. Civilians made things awkward and potentially disastrous, a fact his very presence in the city verified.
It was a rescue mission, plain but not so simple, since it currently involved two captives in distress, presumably confined at different locations. That is, if both were still alive.
The whole trip might turn out to be a waste of time, for all its planning and the hours that he’d spent in transit. If he reached the scene too late, there’d be no happy ending. Only payback, which was one of Bolan’s specialties. Failing to save the day, he could at least do everything within his power to make sure the predators responsible did not survive to go on and commit such horrors again.
Time was not on Bolan’s side. Before he’d even taken off from the United States, one of the prisoners he sought to liberate had already spent two days in hostile custody. The other had been gone for nine days, and he didn’t want to think about what might have happened to her in that time.
He didn’t want to, but the thoughts were unavoidable.
The ideal outcome of his mission would be the extraction of two living, healthy captives from whatever hell they’d been consigned to by their kidnappers. Bolan would settle for the living part, and cherished no illusions that the pair he’d come to find were being pampered by their captors as the days and nights went by. Whatever he found waiting for him at the end of his grim journey, Bolan understood that he was not responsible for healing. Saving lives—or ending them—was all that he aspired to on this night in Prague.
Business as usual.
Employing Bolan was a last resort for any situation. He was only called when every other means had failed and time was absolutely of the essence. And planning could only reach so far in the situations he found himself dealing with. The rest came down to raw audacity and ruthlessness.
He was the cleanup man.
The Executioner.
On this night, in Prague, he still had hope, but it was frail. He harbored no illusions about what might lie in store for him at Oskar’s gym, or wherever the journey took him after that. He felt a sense of urgency, restrained by long experience, and had already steeled himself against the worst possible news.
Which wasn’t death. Not even close.
Bolan had seen the worst—or some of it, at least—and it was always with him. Humans found more ways to torment one another than a sane mind could imagine, but the minds he dealt with on a daily basis only qualified as sane within a narrow legal definition. If a predator knew right from wrong and went ahead regardless, having the capacity to curb his cruelty, he was considered “sane.”
Bolan didn’t care.
The best way he had found to treat a brain seething with malice and contempt for all humanity was with a quick pointblank lobotomy.
Patients were waiting for him in the dark heart of Prague.
And the doctor was in.
FOUR HOURS HAD ELAPSED since Bolan’s touchdown at Prague Ruzyn International Airport, traveling from Paris on Czech Airlines for the last leg of his twelve-hour trip from D.C., counting time spent in various terminals. Before he left the States, he’d put a Volvo S80 on hold with Europcar in Prague and found it waiting for him on arrival, waiting for delivery to Matthew Cooper. That name appeared on Bolan’s primary passport, Virginia driver’s license and the fully paid-up Visa Platinum card that covered any damage to the car while he was using it. He traveled light, a simple carry-on to dodge the extra baggage fees most airlines charged these days, but Bolan also needed tools to do the job at hand.
His first priority, therefore—like that of many other visitors to Prague—was shopping.
Bolan came prepared with a short list of names for suppliers gleaned from Stony Man Farm. He never knew exactly who compiled the lists, nor did he care, as long as there was inventory standing by when Bolan needed it. The list, three names in all, came with specific passwords that should open doors for Bolan as required.
His first stop was a bust, the shop in question vacant, with a placard in the window that directed him to Zorka Geislerová Ltd., presumably some kind of rental agent. Moving on, he found the second vendor just about to lock up for the night, but Bolan’s coded phrase—ryba je ervená, translated as “the fish is red” for reasons that he didn’t bother pondering—bought him the time required to make his purchases.
