The Executioner exploded in the other direction, drawing his .45

“Nice trick,” Augustyn called out.

Bolan heard him reload his half-depleted handgun. The Executioner remained silent, waiting for his opponent to reveal himself. Augustyn’s chatter was meant to distract Bolan, covering noises. The way the apartment was laid out, with soundproofed walls, there was no certain way to locate Augustyn by sound, though the noise of reloading or acquiring new weapons could be heard.

Bolan cursed himself for not taking down Eugene in a quieter manner, but the business manager was fit and brawny enough to turn a struggle into an extended wrestling match had he taken any other approach. Lethal force would have left Bolan behind the curve in figuring out what Augustyn had just been hired to do. Considering Eugene’s voiced disgust, it had to be bad, and he assumed a lot of people would die.

Bolan had just declared war.

Outback Assault

The Executioner®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Cruelty in war buyeth conquest at the dearest price.

—Sir Philip Sidney

1554–1586

My enemies are those who violate the places ordinary people hold sacred. For their careless rush to quench their burning greed, I will exact a price that will not be placid or kind.

—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.

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Doug Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.

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

Arana Wangara was jerked awake by the distant roar of guns cracking in the night. Before she could cry out in dismay, a weathered old hand covered her mouth.

“They will not see us, child,” came a rough whisper. “Sorry, Arana. I keep forgetting you’re not a child.”

Grandfather Wangara’s voice soothed her, but she wasn’t certain that the darkness was cover enough in the outback. For the first time in her eighteen years, she believed that she could die, and the realization chilled her to the bone.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, lying. Her brown eyes were wide and staring to where she could see distant flickers.

The starlit sky, spread out like broken glass on blue velvet, was obscured by the roof of the simple mud hut they’d been sleeping in. Through the doorway, the rolling, dusty terrain looked like dark, frozen waves under the glimmering night sky. With no pollution or electric lights for hundreds of miles, it was a serene, beautiful view that belied the cacophony rumbling in the distance. In the darkness, two Aboriginal tribesmen, their skins as dark as coal, were invisible. Dark-toned clothing helped conceal them under the shadows of their quickly erected hut.

Grandfather had been right to take her and leave their tiny cabin to sleep in a hidden lean-to on the edge of their property, she realized. Ever since the troubles had begun, they’d felt no safety. The sheriff was either too scared or too well bribed to bother to take an interest in the affairs of the Chinese businessmen and their real-estate “transactions” with the Aboriginal Tribal Council.

Arana wrinkled her nose, brow furrowing in frustration. She knew that those transactions had begun to include a bullet in the head and a short trip to the bottom of a shallow grave. The Chinese and their local assistants were nothing more than a pack of savages who were only interested in finding a nice, secluded spot twenty kilometers from the great Uluru mound, the mystical gateway to the Dreamtime.

Arana didn’t know about the truth of the Dreamtime, but Grandfather Wangara’s wisdom seemed to come from sources far beyond those of normal men.

“We are far from our old doorstep, and we have night’s protection,” her grandfather told her. “It would take them hours to find us.”

Her grandfather said that the Chinese would not notice them, and Arana finally felt calm until a powerful crack split the night, a mushroom of fire rising from where their home had once been. Her stomach twisted as the fireball hung lazily, illuminating the gunmen surrounding the house. The building glowed from within.

Arana closed her eyes to the sight, not wanting to see her home burned to the ground. Her grandfather’s hand rested on her shoulder, his weathered face highlighted by the glow of the inferno. She looked up and saw the tears trickle over his cheeks, but his face remained an impassive mask. His brown eyes were unfocused, a sign that he was in touch with the Dreamtime.

Arana pursed her lips and looked back. The men got into their jeeps after their act of arson, not even bothering to pick up the gasoline cans that they’d used to soak the walls. When the law was too timid to poke its nose in, what need was there to hide the evidence? Somewhere, powerful forces were at work to accommodate the Chinese.

All it meant to her was that she and her grandfather had to leave, to run away from the only home she’d ever known. It filled her with anger.

“There will come a man,” the old man whispered. “A crusader who has faced these lowly criminals before. And when he arrives, he will bring death with him, to cleanse the outback.”

Arana looked at him.

“You will meet him in Darwin. And you will know him for his eyes are as cold as a winter sky,” her grandfather said.

“Darwin? We don’t have enough money to go there, and even if we did, they would follow us,” Arana explained, confused.

“I shall not be making the journey with you. I will remain here. The Dreamtime will protect me,” Grandfather told her. “You will go on your own. And though they shall try to interfere with your journey, you will be too clever for them. But remember, your skill will expire the moment you need it most, though luck and the crusader will catch you before you fall.”

Arana swallowed hard.

Grandfather Wangara pressed a roll of money into her palm. “Go swiftly, child. Time is of the essence, and the crusader is turning his eyes to our plight even as we speak.”

Arana nodded. She grabbed her backpack and took off, running across the desert. It was twenty miles to the nearest town, and there she’d catch the bus to Alice Springs. From there, it’d be an even longer ride to Darwin.

Her grandfather, though, was rarely wrong.

On a wing, a prayer, and a healthy slice of blind faith, Arana raced toward town, staying to gullies and ruts in the sand. Dawn was seven hours away, but if she hurried, she’d be at the bus stop shortly after sunrise.

1

The penthouse apartment was palatial in scope. Twenty-five stories above the streets of Hong Kong, the multitiered dwelling would have qualified as a mansion in any other city in the world. The terrace included an expanse of lawn dotted with shade trees, as well as a swimming pool surrounded by polished black marble tile. The three-story dwelling had a large patio that looked out over Victoria Harbour. It was so high that in the shadow of night, the lights of the floating shantytown in the bay looked like a simple extension of Hong Kong’s vibrant streets.

The penthouse was the home of Wade Augustyn, a man considered by the outside world to be a polite, very private gentleman. Augustyn was known as a moderately wealthy philanthropist on the Hong Kong scene, but whispered back-street rumors had brought him to the attention of Mack Bolan. Bolstered by intelligence from Stony Man Farm, Bolan had determined that Augustyn was in the employ of the triads and the Chinese SAD, the Communist nation’s premier security organization.

Augustyn was a “cleaner.” He solved problems for his criminal and government cohorts one bullet at a time, usually from a comfortable distance. The death trail Bolan was tracking was long and twisted, especially when Augustyn had begun to operate not only in the criminal sphere, but also interfered with U.S. intelligence operations in the Orient. Augustyn’s alleged hit list included honest lawmen and operatives fighting for the security of the West against Beijing’s less than honorable pursuits.

The final nail that had marked Augustyn’s coffin was the execution of an American agent who was working behind the scenes trying to eliminate sensitive data that had been seized aboard a captured U.S. Navy spy plane. The agent’s dying actions had been two button presses, one to capture Augustyn’s face, the other to launch a desperate e-mail. With that action, Augustyn had been added to Stony Man Farm’s watch list.

Agent Lissa Reynolds’s final cell-phone digital image had been transmitted to the Farm. Reynolds had once been part of the Farm’s blacksuit operation, one of the few women tough and qualified enough to hang with the commandos and special agents who made up Stony Man’s security and training force. Bolan had met Reynolds only once, and she’d impressed him with her professionalism. That professionalism and unyielding determination had been cut off mercilessly.

Bolan looked at the rifle on the rooftop next to him. The Remington 700 was a nondescript hunting rifle, chambered for 7 mm Remington Magnum. Given the chance, the Executioner preferred a clean, antiseptic kill, and the high-powered hunting rifle would provide that in spades. Across the street from Augustyn’s penthouse, he was in a perfect position to pull the trigger on the man made wealthy by the blood of good people.

Unfortunately, after half a day’s stakeout, Bolan had only learned that the man was out of town, returning that night. In the meantime, the other distant reaching tool that Bolan had at his disposal, a long-range directional microphone, had picked up phone data. He called the Farm to see who was trying to get in touch with the assassin, but Augustyn’s penthouse was electronically secured. Except for the faint warble of his phone, Bolan’s microphone could pick up nothing thanks to a white noise generator. Even Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman and his cybercrew were incapable of breaking through Augustyn’s encrypted telephone lines, meaning that the wealthy killer had put as much work into securing his home as he did making it look luxurious.

“He just landed at the airport, Striker,” Kurtzman advised. “His driver won’t take long to get him home, and we haven’t made a dent in his system. By the time he gets there, he’ll know we’ve been trying to intrude because we tripped over some truly amazing black ice.”

Bolan knew enough of hacker-speak to know that “black ice” was a form of electronic security. For the cybercrew to be caught off guard by such measures was more circumstantial evidence that Wade Augustyn was someone with a lot to hide. It could be the industrial secrets of a less than honest businessman, but combined with Reynolds’s last photograph, in the court of Bolan’s opinion, it was more than enough to warrant a hard probe.

Bolan abandoned the mike and the rifle. Both had been picked up locally, and had been sanitized of fingerprints and DNA residue, in case the SAD discovered them. They’d be considered just two more pieces of black market equipment smuggled into China by foreign devils like the Yakuza or the Americans. As he made his way across the street, concealed on his person were a Chinese-made Norinco, a copy of the venerable Colt .45, and a silenced .32-caliber Walther PPK. It wasn’t his usual load in the field, but it was what was available.

The Executioner rode two elevators to reach Augustyn’s residence. The elevators took him as far as the floor beneath Augustyn’s. The top levels were accessible only via a private car that Bolan couldn’t get into without a security code. Kurtzman tried to open the system, but electronic countermeasures stonewalled the computer wizard. With the assassin’s homecoming only minutes away, Bolan would have to make do with more primitive means. As soon as the car reached the twenty-fourth floor, he stood on a side rail, punched through the access hatch and clambered on top. He tugged on thick leather gloves and climbed the ropes one level.

There were no doors, but there was a ventilation duct access. Bolan scanned it with a flashlight and picked up the presence of pressure sensors on the grating. He fished a 25,000-volt stun gun from his breast pocket and pressed the spikelike leads to the edge of the grating. He tapped the firing stud for two seconds, then flicked on the stun gun’s safety. It was a trick that Stony Man’s Hermann “Gadgets” Schwarz had taught him—a means of temporarily disabling an electronic sensor. The scorch marks it left behind were messy and provided telltale signs of the intrusion, but the Executioner didn’t intend to hang around Hong Kong long enough for that to matter.

Bolan removed the grating and entered the ventilation system, crawling to the first opening. A solid kick smashed the grate out, allowing him to slither into Augustyn’s penthouse suite. He’d only needed enough stealth to cross the street without drawing police attention. Now, hundreds of feet above street level in a home that was shielded by white noise generators and soundproofed walls and floors, the Executioner had a wide-open killing ground safe from Chinese interference, either from above or below the law. At the most, he figured he’d have to deal with Augustyn’s chauffeur, who would either have bodyguard training or be a professional killer in his own right.

Following the floor plans that Kurtzman had provided on the building, he moved to where the private elevator would be. It was secured behind a pair of ornate oak doors that, when opened, proved to be extremely heavy. Bolan could feel the weight of a sheet of armor plate sandwiched between the layers of thick, decorative wood.

The first floor had been tastefully decorated. Hardwood floors gleamed with no sign of heel scuffs marring their beauty even where Bolan had crossed them. He left the doors open, drew the .45 and let it hang low at his side while he searched the apartment. Minimal lighting made the place navigable.

A burst of static suddenly sounded over Bolan’s earphone. He flicked off the safety on his Norinco. He knew that Kurtzman had tried to get through to him. There had to have been only a narrow band through which communications could pierce the bubble of security that Augustyn had installed. Since Bolan was operating on a satellite signal, and his cell phone wasn’t coded for the encryption static that engulfed the apartment, he was unable to make out Kurtzman’s message.

It didn’t matter. The attempt to break through produced enough noise to alert the Executioner that Augustyn had arrived. Bolan returned to the huge doors and closed them. The latch snapped shut with an audible click and he turned. He put himself in the mentality of a world-traveling businessman. He spotted a space atop an intricately carved table where Augustyn would probably empty his pockets and with just a single step and a press of a button, access the messages left for him when he was out.

The hired assassin had a layer of anonymity between himself and his employers. As a matter of survival for Augustyn, he’d likely only take communications in his very secure home, not on the road with a cell phone. The potential to be traced by cellular signal was too great to secure Augustyn’s privacy.

Bolan took a step toward the answering machine and studied the sleek, disklike device. It had to have been cutting-edge technology either straight from Tokyo, or knocked-off in a Hong Kong back-alley electronics lab. He pushed the button and the digital player cycled through its memory, bringing up the three priority messages that had drawn Kurtzman’s attention.

“We need you. Tickets have been arranged for you to travel to Darwin. We’ll have a contact brief you on the cleanup,” the first message announced. The other two were identical to the first, no change in urgency, and had been spaced a day apart.

Nonpriority messages began to play on the sleek machine, but Bolan killed the playback. The machine requested to know if he wanted to retain the trio of messages as priority, and Bolan decided to leave them.

He moved to the room where he’d penetrated the penthouse and fastened the vent cover back into place. There was a slight bulge that kept it from sitting true, but it wouldn’t be noticed without a thorough investigation.

Bolan stayed to the shadows, listening for the triad assassin executioner to arrive. He didn’t have to wait for long. The heavy doors opened with a clack and he heard a deep, resonant voice tell someone to put the bags away. From his vantage point, Bolan could see Augustyn, a tall, powerful man. He was wearing a chauffeur’s uniform. The image that dying agent Reynolds had sent was of the man disguised as a servant. Taking off his formal hat, he fit Bolan’s general appearance, over six feet in height, with wide powerful shoulders disappearing down into a slender waist, his torso a wedge of lean muscle. Black hair and blue eyes added to Augustyn’s vague resemblance to the Executioner.

“Couldn’t wait to get off the elevator to take charge again, eh, Wade?” an older man’s voice croaked.

Augustyn chuckled, his shoulders visibly jerking. “I’m tired, boss,” he said sarcastically.

He listened to the answering machine messages, and frowned. “Forget about the bags, Eugene. Fire up the computer and print out the tickets that Long sent.”

“Tickets?” Eugene asked. “Right. I’ll take care of it. Any idea where we’re off to?”

“Darwin, Australia,” Augustyn said. He wiped out the two redundant digital messages and listened to his remaining messages. “Another cleaning job.”

Eugene’s disgust was broadcast in an audible grunt. He stepped into the open, and Bolan saw a man in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, looking like an older version of Augustyn, only an inch or so shorter. An older brother? Bolan wondered at first, but then decided Augustyn had to have sought out someone with a close enough resemblance to pass for himself. “Cleaning means we’ve got more than one target,” Eugene said.

“If I’ve got to meet with a local contact, there’s going to be a laundry list of duties to carry out,” Augustyn returned. “Not only a direct kill, but applying more pressure than they could bring on their own.”

Eugene frowned. “This means a big, noisy mess. A deniable one to boot.”

“That’s why they’re calling me in. Print the e-ticket. If you want, you can stay behind and make up for our lost time in Hong Kong,” Augustyn replied. “They assume I travel alone anyhow, so you’d have to make your own way.”

“No, thanks,” Eugene replied. “I’d receive enough worried phone calls that I’d be stuck up the creek without a paddle if I took even another day away.”

“You?” Augustyn chided.

“And you, too, by extension,” Eugene amended, walking off.

The big assassin picked up a sleek cordless phone off the disklike answering machine and dialed a series of numbers. “Set up my usual Australia safari package. Darwin,” he said.

Bolan skulked down a hallway and closed in on Eugene as he hovered over a keyboard, scanning through e-mail messages. The Executioner waited until the man hit the print command on the electronic ticket, then stepped into the den behind Augustyn’s business manager. He jabbed a quick punch under Eugene’s ear, a blow placed perfectly to render him unconscious. The businessman slumped into Bolan’s arms, and he lowered the man on the floor. It took only a few moments to bind Eugene’s wrists and ankles to keep him to the upcoming fight. He’d need more intelligence from the man later.

A sudden movement in Bolan’s peripheral vision ignited his reflexes, throwing him to the floor an instant before the roar of a .45 split the air. The liquid crystal flat panel display for Augustyn’s computer burst, a quartersized hole blown through it.

“You’re good, whoever you are. I didn’t even know you were in the apartment until I heard Eugene’s grunt as you knocked him out,” Augustyn said.

Bolan didn’t answer. He had two alternate ways out of the office. One door to the right would force Augustyn to move more to intercept him, and it was close at hand. He shoved the desk chair toward that door and spun toward the farther exit from the den as another pair of .45-caliber slugs punched into the back of the chair.

As soon as he saw Augustyn disappear to intercept Bolan’s false path, the Executioner exploded in the other direction, drawing his .45 in one swift movement. By the time the assassin discovered he’d been bluffed, it was too late for Augustyn to do anything except blow a chunk of wall apart with another big slug.

“Nice trick,” Augustyn called out. Bolan heard him reload his half-depleted handgun. The Executioner remained silent, waiting for his opponent to reveal himself. Augustyn’s chatter was meant to distract Bolan, covering noises. The way that the apartment was laid out, with soundproofed walls, there was no certain way to locate Augustyn by sound, though the noise of reloading or acquiring new weapons could be heard.

Bolan cursed himself for not taking down Eugene in a quieter manner, but the business manager was fit and brawny enough to turn a struggle into an extended wrestling match had he taken any other approach. Lethal force would have left Bolan behind the curve in figuring out what Augustyn had just been hired to do. Considering Eugene’s voiced disgust, it had to be bad and he assumed a lot of people would die. Bolan had just declared war.

He looked down the hall to the corner and saw a reflective vase. He spotted Augustyn, observing the same curved, mirrored surface. Both men spotted each other at the same time, using the glassy surface to grant an around-the-corner view for defense. Bolan triggered the Norinco, blew the vase to splinters and retreated away from the intersection. Seeing another vase, he picked it up and hurled it toward the other end of the hallway. Crashing glass and an involuntary grunt of surprise told the Executioner that his distraction play worked and he nestled against the wall, crouched low and away from the edge so that he wouldn’t be in hand-to-hand range if Augustyn whipped around the corner, prepared to disarm him.

Bullets punched into the wall, noise and fury rocking through the quiet calm of the apartment, but the gun battle’s thunder was swallowed by Augustyn’s nearly obsessive privacy measures. The Executioner waited a moment, but he didn’t hear his enemy reload, and he knew that Augustyn had fallen back to flank him. Bolan turned and cut back toward the entrance to the apartment.

He was taking a chance, leaving Eugene at Augustyn’s mercy, but as disposable as Bolan had assumed the manager was, the assassin would be loathe to get rid of a good asset just because the Executioner had dropped in on their little setup. If it appeared that Bolan was getting a decisive advantage, Augustyn might fall back and make the effort to take out the older man, but for now, the cocky killer assumed that on his own turf, he was unbeatable.

As Bolan entered the living room, he caught a glimpse of the tall, black-haired assassin and dived to the carpet as the rattle of a machine pistol cut through the air. Parabellum shockers snapped into the wall he’d been standing in front of only a brief moment before. Bolan returned fire, emptying the Norinco and pulling the suppressed Walther to keep up the heat until he reached the cover of the alcove. The Executioner’s withering fire sent Augustyn packing into retreat, his autofire only resulting in damaged walls and shattered picture frames.

Bolan swiftly reloaded, shielded by Augustyn’s sofa, but he realized his enemy had accessed a heavier supply of weapons. He’d been outgunned before, so it wasn’t worth considering. Instead, he focused on what he could control. He looked into the kitchen, but a small mirror had been smashed, obscuring its ability to betray Augustyn’s presence.

That was good news. Bolan’s discovery of Augustyn’s corner views meant that the assassin was destroying his own means of detecting the Executioner’s pursuit. It was a two-edged sword, and Bolan wasn’t going to rush headlong into the kitchen in case Augustyn was laying in wait. Without grenades to clear the rooms of the penthouse, Bolan was going to have to take things slow and steady, using his senses to their utmost.

Just as he made this realization, the Executioner heard the familiar sound of the bounce of a grenade hitting carpet. Bolan tucked down and cut loose with a loud roar, instants before the living room’s atmosphere split apart in a peal of catastrophic noise. The shout saved his eardrums from the effect of the stun-shock grenade, and the bulk of the sofa protected him from the blazing glare of the mini-bomb’s flash powder and shock wave. He pushed to his feet, already knowing what was coming next and he spotted Augustyn as a blur through the kitchen doorway, wielding a pair of long-bladed knives.

Bolan fired the Norinco, but the assassin was moving too quickly for a direct center mass shot. A .45-caliber slug sliced through Augustyn’s side, slowing him and throwing off his pace. One of the nine-inch blades lashed down and rang violently against the slide of Bolan’s .45, knocking it from his hands. Only the steel of the pistol had prevented Bolan’s finger from being severed by the vicious slash, and he lunged in before the killer could follow up with the second knife. His shoulder-block took Augustyn in the breastbone and knocked him off balance, blowing breath from his lungs. Bolan wanted to unsnarl his Walther from where he’d pinned it between his opponent’s torso and himself, but with the glare of knife blades in his peripheral vision, he took the path of least resistance, hooking his emptied hand around and catching Augustyn over his ear.

The blow was meant to stop the assassin cold, but the savvy killer had seen it coming and tilted to one side, reducing the force from fatal to merely mind-reeling. The tip of one of the butcher knives flicked out and took Bolan across the bicep, a shallow cut, but one that forced the Executioner into a momentary retreat. Reflex had pulled him out of position for a shot with the Walther.

Bolan pulled the trigger anyway, the .32-caliber bullet exploding against the carpet next to Augustyn’s head and distracted him enough so that the kick the assassin had been intending to launch missed shattering Bolan’s jaw by mere millimeters. Another tug of the Walther’s trigger elicited a grunt of pain, but it was answered by a second kick that took Bolan in the gut, staggering him backward.

Augustyn lunged, reaching for Bolan’s fallen .45, but the Walther spoke again, a bullet chopping the frame of the Norinco and spinning it out of Augustyn’s grasp.

“Son of a bitch!” Augustyn snarled. The knife whipped out of his hand as he threw it, the blade whirring so close it gouged a narrow furrow in Bolan’s shoulder. He struggled to reach the .45, but Bolan lunged for the killer as he dived again for the big pistol. Their bodies crashed like great rams, paused in the air as the forces of their momentum struggled to overcome each other and then gravity pulled them to the floor.

Augustyn wrapped the fingers of one powerful hand around Bolan’s throat, the grasp strong enough that the soldier felt the air cut off from his lungs, fingertips pressing against his carotid artery to deny his brain fresh blood. Bolan clamped one hand over Augustyn’s bicep and punched hard into the assassin’s elbow. Bone cracked like a gunshot, eliciting a wail of agony. The lethal pressure crushing his throat was gone, and Bolan saw that the hired killer’s opposite shoulder had been wounded by the Walther, keeping Augustyn from using it to throttle Bolan. It was a small mercy that had saved Bolan’s life.

The Executioner rammed a hard knee into Augustyn’s breastbone, ejecting the breath from the man’s lungs. He knuckle-punched the Hong Kong hit man in the Adam’s apple and the assassin’s eyes bulged as his throat collapsed under the brutal strike. His tongue lolled from his mouth and his wounded arm reached up to grab hold of Bolan’s jacket. A second jutting-knuckle strike spiked between Augustyn’s eyes, bone shattering under the force of the blow. The hit man fell limp with a full-body shudder.

Bolan cradled his aching knuckles. The blows had done their job, saving his life and ending that of a triad-hired murderer.

He staggered to his feet, retrieved the Norinco .45 and went to look for Eugene.

The Executioner had travel arrangements to make to meet with Augustyn’s former employers.

2

Eugene Waylon’s eyes fluttered open, and he felt the blood settling in his head. A cool breeze brushed through his hair, and as his vision focused, he could see Hong Kong’s skyline. But it didn’t quite look right. As his consciousness grew stronger, he realized that it was upside down. A grip like a vise held on to both ankles, and suddenly he slipped, dropping a foot. He looked around and saw the streets below, a blaze of garish neon ready to suck him down.

“Glad you could join me again,” a grim and harsh voice said. Waylon tried to speak, but his throat had constricted in fear. His glasses slipped off his face and tumbled away, spiraling into the distance below. The businessman could feel his skin contracting all over his body, his stomach churning. Bile crept into the back of his throat.

“You don’t need to know my name. You just need to know I exist.” The voice cut into his terror. Waylon looked up to see the man’s face. He looked as if he could have been Wade Augustyn’s brother, except his blue eyes were even more chilling and penetrating.

“What do you want?” Waylon croaked, the sourness of his bile burning like a cloud of napalm through his mouth.

“The man you fronted for is dead,” the Executioner said. “I’ll be taking his place for a while, and when I’m done, I want you to fold up his operation and throw it away.”

“What operation?”

Bolan released one of Waylon’s ankles, which elicited a bleat of fear from him. He could see the arm still holding his ankle was wrapped in a bandage around the biceps. The businessman was able to see the raw power in Bolan’s arms, but a smear of red grew in the center of the bandage.

“You can either quit playing stupid, or you can see how long I can hold you up with an injured arm,” Bolan said.

“Wait! Wait!” Waylon howled. “Don’t drop me!”

“Keep talking, Eugene,” Bolan said.

“All right, I’ll make Augustyn’s assassination operation disappear,” Waylon conceded. “Just don’t let go.”

Bolan took hold of Waylon’s other ankle. “Before making it disappear, e-mail all the details to the address I wrote down on your computer desk. All of his contacts, everyone who supplied him, everyone who contracted him.”

Waylon nodded. “Yes.”

“Which triad was Augustyn working for?” Bolan asked.

“The Black Rose,” Waylon answered.

Bolan knew the organization. They were a particularly aggressive and brutal group, given to bouts of violent infighting. “If I hear you’ve set yourself up as someone else’s front man, I’ll make you wish I dropped you off this roof,” Bolan told him. “I’l be watching your every move.”

“Yes, sir,” Waylon said.

“But first, tell me who Augustyn would use as his supplier for an operation in Darwin, Australia,” Bolan ordered.

Waylon looked up. “He’d kill me if I gave him up.”

Bolan pulled Waylon up farther. Eye-level with the balcony, he could see Augustyn’s corpse. “You really think he’ll ever take a shot at you?” Bolan asked.

“N-no, sir,” Waylon stammered.

“Your choice. Spill your guts, or I spill you into the street and take everything apart the hard way,” Bolan said.

Waylon began to talk. He was grateful to be dragged onto the balcony and thrown atop Augustyn’s clammy, pulped form, despite the splatter of blood from the assassin’s caved-in face that spurted over his clothes. He dragged himself away from the corpse and looked to Bolan, who had a laptop sitting on the table.

“What’s that for?” Waylon asked.

“Paying your debt to society,” Bolan informed him.

“Listen, I was just Augustyn’s business manager. I never pulled a trigger!” Waylon said.

“I know. You’re still covered in stains from your blood money, however,” Bolan replied. “Get to work.”

Waylon sat behind the keyboard and saw the screen contained Augustyn’s private, Cayman Island bank accounts. “What do I do?”

“Empty them,” Bolan said.

“But, how will I live?” Waylon asked.

The Executioner lifted his Norinco .45. “Without a hole in one side of your skull and a grapefruit-sized excavation cavity on the other.”

“Okay,” Waylon answered.

“You’re in charge of that killer’s legitimate business holdings. Manage them well, and make your money. Continue his role as philanthropist and run his companies well,” Bolan continued. “If your businesses fail and people suffer and go out of work, I’ll be back.”

Waylon nodded.

“Open these accounts and transmit to this array,” Bolan told him, putting down a piece of paper. “Empty the coffers.”

Waylon glanced at Augustyn’s fortune. Hundreds of millions of dollars in several accounts were going to be transferred to the set of banks Bolan had put before him. He looked questioningly toward the Executioner. “This was a robbery?”

“This was eliminating pure evil,” Bolan stated. “However, his blood money will be put to use for some good.”

“In your pocket?” Waylon asked.

Bolan shook his head no, disdain for the thought registering in a hard, chilling glare. The money from assets acquired while Bolan was on missions would have made Bolan one of the richest men in the world. But Bolan had no interest in such things. The money would be used by Stony Man Farm to fund future missions.

Waylon finished transferring Augustyn’s funds. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Bolan asked.

“For assuming that money was your motivation,” Waylon stated, obviously trying to get back on Bolan’s good side.

The Executioner shook his head.

“It wasn’t Augustyn’s, either,” Waylon continued. “He did it for the thrill.”

“That’s not my goal, either,” Bolan warned. “Don’t think too hard about it, Eugene. This is the end of your old life. Now’s your chance to be a saint and wash the grime off your soul.”

The businessman nodded and watched as the big black .45 went into Bolan’s hip holster.

“Grow old gracefully, Eugene,” Bolan said. “And you’ll never see me again.”

With that, the Executioner left the lavish penthouse, just as the sun cracked the skyline.

BOLAN TOOK THE TIME to dispose of the guns in Augustyn’s apartment. He didn’t want anyone in the Hong Kong underworld to get hold of the assassin’s rather impressive firepower. He had gone to an auto yard and hidden the submachine guns, rifles and handguns he’d stolen from the triad assassin inside the trunk of a car on the pile to be crushed and compressed into a cube of scrap metal. He would have liked to have set some of the arsenal aside for himself, including the new .338 Lapua Magnum-chambered Barrett rifle. The big gun was a state-of-the-art antipersonnel weapon that would give a marksman a reach of a mile.

He’d have to find something in Darwin from Augustyn’s supplier.

Bolan waited an hour, and as soon as the magnet dropped the arsenal-packed junk mobile into the compressor, he left. He could hear the grinding of metal into a fused, crushed block. He got into his rental car and drove to the airport, where the electronic ticket would ferry him to Darwin, Australia.

He pulled his phone from his pocket in response to its subtle thrumming vibration, and flipped it open to hear Barbara Price, Stony Man’s mission controller, on the other end.

“You’re not coming home?” Price asked.

“I’ve got some unexpected business. I’ll be extending my trip,” Bolan answered.

“Striker, we’ve got a few operations waiting on the back burner here at home,” Price told him. “You’re not even certain what Augustyn had been hired for.”

“He was hired to be an exterminator. And these aren’t vermin he’d been called in on, these are human beings,” Bolan explained. “If they’re people I normally would have targeted, then good. I’ll do the job, and then take out Augustyn’s paymasters.”

“And if they’re citizens in the way of the triads?” Price asked.

“Then I just burn down the gangsters,” Bolan stated. “I’ll come home even faster.”

“Be careful down there, Striker,” Price said.

“I’ll take care of things and keep you posted,” Bolan replied, hanging up.

Bolan considered the situation. No one in Darwin would be prepared for an all-out power play by the triads, and no naval blockade or aircraft carrier offshore could calm this conflict.

It required the Executioner’s touch of cleansing fire.

BOBBY YEUNG STEPPED OUT of the back of the Ford Explorer once his bodyguards had determined that the area for the next five hundred yards was empty of human habitation except for the police and fire officers looking at the burned-out ranch house. The sheriff, Ansen Crown, noticed him and walked over.

“What’s the story?” Yeung asked as Crown approached him.

The sheriff looked around, then shook his head. “Arson. No bodies found.”

Yeung nodded. He restrained his frustration as he realized that the rednecks he’d hired had been sloppy. Obwe “Grandfather” Wangara was one of the last men alive among the tribes with the determination to expose the Black Rose Triad’s operations in their territories.

“You heard about the girl boarding the bus to Alice Springs, right?” Crown asked.

Yeung nodded. Wangara’s granddaughter, Arana, was missing from the ashes of the fire. A lone, eighteen-year-old Aboriginal girl would be hard to find in the outback. If she reached any authorities Yeung’s triad had not paid off, there would be difficulties.

Killing native people in a remote location of Australia was one thing. Dealing with government officials in the open would be another. Yeung wished that the Black Rose Triad’s assassin would respond and pick up his electronic ticket. While he was irate with the men he’d hired locally, he knew that the triad assassin was trustworthy. The man had been a powerful, secret asset. His very appearance turned attention away from the organization he worked for, as the triads were notoriously loathe to use non-Chinese in their employ.

“Just make certain that no one raises a stink about the old man’s home burning. If possible, report him dead,” Yeung stated.

“I’ve got everything hushed up,” Crown answered. “But without a body—”

Yeung interrupted, holding his frustration in check. “Do what you can. I’ve got a troubleshooter coming in to help out with this.”

“I can pass most of this off on bigots getting drunk and riled, but an organized assassin…” Crown began.

“If you had done your job the way I wanted you to, none of this would have been necessary. Since you couldn’t evict these people, just be glad I need a mouthpiece among local law enforcement. Otherwise, we’d be using your bones as that old man,” Yeung snapped. “Got that?”

Crown clenched his jaw but nodded in quiet agreement.

“Don’t fuck with me. I know where you live,” Yeung snarled. He turned and got back in his SUV. His cell phone warbled and he plucked it from his pocket.

“Bobby, our man picked up his ticket and boarded his flight.” The call was from Frankie Law, his right-hand man. “Our troubles are over.”

“I’d like to think so, Frankie,” Yeung replied. “But the situation’s just gotten a little more complicated. The Abos who were straining at the leash finally slipped out of sight. At least one of them is on the way to civilization.”

“I’ll get our boys on the street. What’s the description?” Law asked.

“Five feet, black, about eighteen. Fairly cute for a little black girl,” Yeung stated.

“Damn, not the chick,” Law said.

“You’ve got a problem with that?” Yeung inquired.

“I just wanted a little taste. She was nicer than you let on,” Law replied.

“Find her and kill her when you’re done,” Yeung ordered. “These fuckers have given me enough headaches. “Just find the little bitch and deliver her head to me. Keep the rest for whatever you want.”

“Kinky.” Law chuckled.

“Dammit, Frankie!” Yeung said. It was too late. His head man in Darwin had hung up.

Yeung put the phone away, looking out the window.

When he’d been asked to set up a major transportation hub and processing center for the triad’s heroin pipeline, Yeung had jumped at the chance. It would be his ticket to the top of the heap in Hong Kong. Now, a year later, he was sick of the outback, sick of the Aborigines and the ugly, inbred whites with their mush-mouthed butchering of the English language, and he was sick of being stuck on the ass of the planet. He was a city boy. He wanted to be back among skyscrapers and neon lights and bodies packed together like sardines, with loud music, cigarette smoke and perfumed whores jammed in around him, pawing over his senses.

The facility was operating at half capacity, but once it was running at full power, he’d be called back to Hong Kong to be given an opportunity to rise up the ladder.

All it would take would be a few more dead Aborigines, and he would have the facility operating with impunity.

He was glad that the triad’s assassin was coming to fix it all.

3

Bolan got off the plane, eyes sharp for the presence of any members of the Black Rose Triad who would be at the airport to greet him. If they knew Wade Augustyn by sight, they would know something was wrong. His carry-on was only loaded with clothes. He’d be unarmed in the face of a mobster offensive. Under other circumstances that wouldn’t be a problem, but in an airport full of civilians, any delay in neutralizing armed opposition would increase the risk of bystanders being gunned down.

Since no Chinese gunmen popped out of the woodwork, Berettas blazing, Bolan felt secure going to the public lockers. He felt under the one he’d been directed to in the attachment to the e-mail containing the electronic ticket he’d ridden in on. The key was taped under a metal lip, and he plucked it free. Inside the locker were two envelopes. One was a large manila, stuffed with what looked like a file. The other was a smaller padded envelope containing a cellular phone. Bolan tucked the file into his carry-on and retrieved the phone. He hit the speed dial.

“Finally made it,” came the voice on the other end.

“I was just getting back from other business,” Bolan said, imitating Augustyn’s voice.

When Bobby Yeung spoke again, he gave no indication of noting any difference. “Say no more. How long will it take for you to get equipped for your safari?”

“Give me till dusk to get what I need,” Bolan said.

“Good. We’ve got a situation. We might need you prowling in Darwin first. I’ve got my people out and about, but…”

Bolan walked over to a table in the concourse food court and took a seat. He pulled out the file and set it before him, opening it. “There’s a picture of them in my file?”

“Naturally,” the Black Rose man said.

“Which one?” Bolan asked.

“The girl. She escaped, and we need to put her down fast.”

“You can’t find her?” Bolan pressed. He looked at the young woman. She was pretty, with big beautiful brown eyes. The name scrawled in the margin of the photo was Arana Wangara. It was right next to a photograph of an older man labeled Grandfather Wangara. In red marker, across Grandfather’s face, was written Troublemaker.

“She disappeared in Alice Springs. We had hoped to catch up with her, but—”

“But they didn’t think that she could blend in with a crowd because she was just an Abo, right?”

The Chinese mobster chuckled. Bolan’s derision of his people’s bigoted arrogance wasn’t lost on him. “It wasn’t my people. We’d had a couple of thick-headed whites doing the legwork. I’ll have some real talent searching the bus stations in Darwin—including you.”

“If you’ve got your act together, what do you need me for?” Bolan asked.

“Because I’m still stuck in the middle of absolute nowhere. And I need someone smart making sure this little chickie is put down,” the triad spokesman said.

“I don’t do bus station detail,” Bolan replied. “Even in Australia, there’s too much of a urine smell.”

“How about you roll up a few thousand yen and stick them up your damn nose to filter out the piss-stink?” the Chinese bartered.

“A few thousand yen’s pocket change,” Bolan countered.

“Dollars?” the gangster offered.

“Pounds sterling,” Bolan said.

“You’re killin’ me!” Yeung exclaimed.

“You should be so important,” Bolan warned. “Come to think of it, why are we killing a young woman?”

“Because she’s a liability,” the mobster explained, sounding as if he were talking to a child.

“Well, if you want me to bust my ass for a week hunting down Grandpa Abo, you’re paying by the day,” Bolan reminded him. “Frankly, I’d rather make my job easier.”

The Chinese man hissed in frustration. “Can you get this kind of information out of the girl?”

“Only if she stays alive,” Bolan admonished. “And stays healthy.”

“Healthy,” the mob boss repeated.

“As in untouched. If she goes catatonic because some of your boys took a piece, my work is going to be a lot harder. And they personally won’t like me when I have to work harder,” Bolan growled. “Got it?”

“You kill my men—”

“What? You called me in because you couldn’t handle this. What makes you think you can handle me?” Bolan asked. “Because if you can handle me, some old man shouldn’t be the top page of your hit list.”

“That’s because they say he’s one of their shaman…whatevers. He walks in the Dreamtime or some such. Keeping up with him is impossible,” Yeung answered.

“You called me in to exterminate fifteen unarmed Aboriginal activists,” Bolan said.

“They’re not Chinese. What do we care?”

“You got me. As long as I get my cash,” Bolan replied.

“I’ll get a message to my boys,” Bobby Yeung replied. “You’ll get your bonus for catching the girl.”

Bolan hung up the phone and examined the files after getting something to drink at one of the counters on the food court.

From the description of the targets, it didn’t take the Executioner long to figure out that the triads were clearing a tract of land for a large facility, and the heads on the list were community activists trying to maintain their tribal lands. Considering the space being opened up by the Chinese mobsters, Bolan wouldn’t have put it past them to build an airport that would be a stopover to “sanitize” overseas shipments, a form of relay that would keep customs from looking too closely at repackaged contraband.

It was a perfect setup for anything from knockoff goods to drugs. Remembering his basic knowledge of the Australian outback, and the fact that he was going to clean house a hundred or so miles from the famous Uluru mound, he’d be operating in a desert environment. The file requested that everything be made to look as if it were the act of a lone psychotic with a powerful hunting rifle.

Bolan finished his drink, bought a sandwich wrap to go and switched to the cell phone he had taken from Eugene Waylon. It was programmed with Augustyn’s Darwin contacts.

He flipped open the phone, and typed in a quick text message to the assassin’s arms dealer in northern Australia. The response was immediate.

“Meet me in a half an hour.” An address was provided with the response. Bolan pocketed the phone and went to a shop for some items he knew he’d need for the upcoming meeting with the gun seller. It’d have to be enough until he got his hands on some real firearms.

ARANA WANGARA GOT OFF the bus and kept her head low. She tried to blend in as a bored teenage tourist, keeping sullenly to herself as she tucked her knapsack tightly under her arm. Wangara scanned the crowd for signs of the Asian musclemen working for the mobsters who’d ordered her home torched.

She’d loaded a couple of rocks in the bottom of her bag as a crude weapon. The weighted sack would at least knock a bad guy off his feet, if not break a jaw or cheekbone. It wasn’t a shotgun, but at least it was something. Seeing her unarmed might actually lull her hunters into a false sense of security that would give her a chance to upgrade to an actual firearm.

Wangara clutched the strap of her bag tightly, eyes darting. Her grandfather had taught her how to use his rifle, a bolt-action Enfield from World War II, original ANZAC issue, and a pump shotgun. She’d even taken lives, dropping a marauding, sheep-killing dingo with the Enfield, as well as wild hogs. She’d learned that she could kill to protect lives, and while there was a difference between Chinese gangsters or bigoted Outback rednecks and a feral dog, the end result was the same.

Violence against violence, to preserve life, she thought. If she fell, then the gangsters and their hired thugs would kill other members of the tribe to keep them silent about the activities on their stolen land. She certainly did not want to die, but she also knew living would be made hollow if she let down her grandfather.

Wangara tucked her chin down against her chest and continued through the bus terminal, weaving in time with the crowd around her. Someone on the periphery of the group jerked his attention toward her, the sudden movement focusing Wangara like a laser on him. It was a young Asian man, wearing black sunglasses and a battered leather jacket too large for his slight frame, but with enough drape to hide a pair of sawed-off shotguns under its folds. She returned to staring at the floor, walking quickly to keep pace with the other tourists.

The young Chinese man tried to push through the throng of departing bus riders, but Wangara was out the door and turning down the street. There was another Asian man outside, this one wearing an overly large jacket, except in denim. He reached under his lapel, watching her through his impenetrable shades. Wangara fought not to run, not to look at the gunman out of the corner of her eye.

Acknowledgment of her hunters would give them the advantage. They were holding back, not quite sure if she was the prey they were seeking. If she bolted, or even if she glared at them too long to study them, they would be certain and act quickly to either restrain her or just pull their guns and fill her with holes.

Wangara kept to the main street. The gangsters would be hesitant to act in the open, with so many witnesses around. The reason she was being hunted was to keep the triad’s scheme from being discovered. The blatant, public assassination of a young woman on the run from her Aboriginal tribal lands would draw attention like a lightning rod.

The man with the denim jacket pulled out a cell phone and spoke into it. He turned it toward her, and Wangara knew she couldn’t suddenly look away, despite the fact that she knew he was using the cell’s camera attachment. She only hoped that the usually blurry distance shots would make her identification difficult, especially since the young mob tough was only able to catch an angled profile.

It wasn’t much, but she was grateful for any advantage she had. The weight of the rocks in the bag on her shoulder gave her more reassurance, but nothing would last forever. Sooner or later, the man in the jean jacket would move in to make a final identification, and Wangara would have to fight or die.

She hoped that her grandfather was right about the lone crusader.

THE EXECUTIONER STOOD in the doorway of Red’s Sporting Supply, his eyes adjusting to the light.

“Plastic surgery again?”

Bolan scanned the small sporting goods store and saw an older man with a rust-colored crew cut and a nose that had been mashed flat in countless fights. Dark, hard eyes glared out from under a beetle brow as he evaluated the newcomer.

Bolan nodded.

“You’re paranoid, Wade,” Red said. “Come in the back.”

“Sure,” Bolan replied, adopting Wade’s speech patterns, but speaking softly.

“What’d you do to your throat?” the arms supplier asked.

“Had the surgeon give it a few scrapes,” Bolan explained. “Change my voice just enough. Figured a new face isn’t any good without an altered voice.”

“Like I said, Wade. Paranoid.”

Bolan smiled. “I’m still alive.”

Red laughed as they entered the back room. There was a door and from the other side, Bolan could hear muffled pops coming through a basement stairwell entrance. Signs on the windows out front had mentioned a public range, firearms rentals, as well as a storage fee for personally owned weapons. “I’ve got a bag ready for you, based on what you texted me.”

Bolan nodded and walked over to the gym bag with the All Blacks logo on the side. He unzipped it, looking at a pair of pistol rugs and a short rifle case.

“The rifle’s been broken down, but if you want to look at it, I’ll let you check it out on the range,” Red said. He tossed Bolan a pair of ear protectors and some shooting glasses.

Bolan donned them and took the bag to the basement range.

“Won’t be able to sight in at a distance,” Red said, following him down, wearing his own ear and eye protection.

“I know how to zero based on close range,” Bolan replied as he opened the case. He assembled the weapon, recognizing it as a VEPR. Considering that the VEPR was a reengineered RPK machine gun, itself a derivative of the AK-47, the Executioner knew it would be a good, tough rifle, immune to any hostile environment he’d drag it through. He looked at the magazine and saw that it was chambered for .300 Winchester Magnum rounds. The rifle’s reinforced receiver could handle the extra-powerful cartridge. Whereas the AK itself had been made from stamped steel, the VEPR was made of stronger metal, with a stronger bolt, designed for firing prolonged bursts from extended light-machine-gun-sized magazines. On single shot, it would handle the .300 Magnum rounds just fine. The wooden AK furniture had been replaced by desert camouflage reinforced fiberglass. He attached a scope and test fired. With the rifle set to a “point-blank” of 200 yards, at a mere 25 yards he knew how high the first shot should hit. The test impact was within millimeters of Bolan’s estimation, and he reset the scope.

The balance was almost perfect, though the shoulder stock was a little short for his long arms. It would do, he thought, and looked to Red.

“If you’re going to pretend to be Wade, you should be a little more finicky,” the store owner said.

Bolan tensed.

“Don’t worry. You’re still a paying customer, but you should realize, Eugene contacted me,” Red stated.

“So why aren’t you worried about me?” Bolan asked, using his normal voice.

Red pointed to the bag. “Because if you were going to try to kill me, there’s enough weaponry in there to take me and my boys out.”

Bolan was aware that the other two shooters on the line had stopped firing and were glancing at him.

“You could have given me dummy ammunition,” Bolan stated. “Or sealed off the rounds in separate containers, like you did with the rifle.”

“The magazines for the pistols are empty,” Red explained. “But even so, you’ve got a pair of good working knives in there. If you’re good enough to take down Wade in hand-to-hand, the revolver in my pocket wouldn’t be worth much against you.” The black-market dealer pulled a small Smith & Wesson Centennial from his pocket and set it on a counter.

“You’re right. I am a paying customer. And the only reason I’d mix it up with you and your boys would be if you made a move against me,” Bolan stated honestly.

“Face-to-face, you’re very convincing. Good acting,” Red complimented him. “But if Eugene has blown your cover to me…”

“He might try to contact the Black Rose Triad and let them know that I’m not the man they hired,” Bolan said. “I’d hoped to give him a chance to go straight.”

“Wade hired Eugene because the twerp is the same type of soulless bastard that he was,” Red explained. “You just cleared the deck for Eugene to take charge of all Wade’s assets, and maybe even hire a replacement for him.”

“So what’s your interest in warning me about all this?” Bolan asked.

“I don’t do a lot of illicit business,” the arms dealer replied. “I try to sell to otherwise law-abiding folks who know they can’t count on a government to guard them. A lot of the time, it’s guns for folks going to someplace really dangerous, like Jakarta, the Philippines or Thailand, where the thugs don’t care about gun-control laws and are just looking for white-skinned Aussies because they know we’re soft prey.”

Bolan nodded. “Wade was an aberration?”

“He had the goods on me. He passed himself off as a stand-up guy, and after he made a couple of kills, he kept the weapons and the bill of sale. If I held out on him, he’d let the government know, and they’d shut me down cold,” Red told him. “My arse was on the line.”

“So you never got paid,” Bolan said.

“I was paid a token amount, enough to keep me implicated in newer hits he performed with the stuff I gave him,” Red answered. “The paper trail would sink me.”

Bolan nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“How do you know I’m not giving you a cock-and-bull?” Red asked.

“Because you know I’m not the type to just hand you over to the law,” Bolan answered.

He checked the contents of the pistol rugs. One contained a 9 mm Walther P-99 QA. The polymer-framed pistol was flat, and had interchangeable back straps for its grip and felt good in Bolan’s hand. He popped the medium-sized grip and put in the extra-large version. The P-99’s Quick Action trigger was a relatively light double-action pull, feeling more like a Glock than anything. The smooth, straight pull provided antiflinch safety but was light enough for fine accuracy. Despite its light weight and compact size, the weapon still held sixteen rounds in its magazine with another pill in the chamber. The barrel was threaded, and there was a sound suppressor for the smaller handgun. “I didn’t have a PPK for Wade…”

“That’s okay. I like this,” Bolan answered.

The other pistol rug held a long-barreled .44 Magnum Raging Bull revolver, by Taurus. It was an acceptable substitute for the Executioner’s usual Desert Eagle. Bolan dry-fired, testing the trigger pull. It was as smooth as butter, and Bolan didn’t doubt that the mass of the revolver would soak up recoil as easily as the gas mechanism of his preferred Desert Eagle.

“I smoothed out all the linkages but didn’t change the pull weight,” Red explained. “It’ll pop any of its caps reliably, once you return the firing pin to operation.”

“If I were going for a snatch and grab, I’d plop a few shells into the revolver and start shooting. Smart man.”

“No. Paranoid myself…and like you said, I’m still alive.”

“Alive, and richer,” Bolan said. “Where’s the firing pin?”

Red tossed him a small plastic bag. The Executioner replied by handing him a thick roll of money.

“You don’t need to,” the store owner said.

“I pay my own way,” Bolan stated.

Red nodded. “Eugene might try to do something to take care of me when he finds out I didn’t burn you down.”

Bolan took out his cell phone, sending a quick e-mail off to Stony Man Farm. “I’ll make arrangements that will shield you. Congratulations on becoming a confidential informant for the United States Justice Department. You’re involved in a sting to take down a killer for hire.”

Red raised an eyebrow. “Against Eugene Waylon?”

Bolan nodded.

“So anything he says will be ignored by the authorities?” Red asked. “What if he turns the triad onto me?”

“That won’t be a problem,” Bolan told him. He’d already installed the firing pin in the Raging Bull revolver and loaded it with six rounds. He zipped it back into its pistol rug. “I’m here to make certain of that. All of Augustyn’s loose ends, including Waylon, will be taken care of.”

He began setting up the Walther and its shoulder holster. “Just be sure to stay on your toes until I contact you that everything is in the clear,” Bolan said, thumbing rounds into the P-99.

“No kidding,” Red replied. He put the Centennial back in his pocket. “Good luck, Mr….”

Bolan shook his head. “Luck has nothing to do with it. And the less you know, the better.”

Red held out his hand, and the two men shook. Bolan explored the Australian’s eyes for signs of deceit, finding nothing. Not like the terrified traitor he’d left behind in Hong Kong.

EUGENE WAYLON KNEW that it wouldn’t take the big bastard long to meet up with Red. He’d toyed with the idea of calling the Darwin police department to let them know about an arms deal going down in their backyard, but he knew the cops might not be enough to take down the man who’d reduced Wade Augustyn to a bloody pulp in the middle of his own living room.

Besides, calling the police wasn’t in Waylon’s repertoire. He did get on the horn, however. Not to the Chinese. If the Black Rose Triad had learned that their safe, sanitized Western assassin was permanently out of action and replaced by a fake, Waylon knew that his own life would be forfeit.

He decided to get in touch with the men Augustyn sometimes called in for backup. There were four of them, members of a U.S. Marine detachment who had gone AWOL in the Philippines when they had come under suspicion of hiring themselves out to local gangsters as muscle. Going into hiding, the former Marines simply expanded their moonlighting activities for the Filipino mobsters to become full-fledged mercenaries. As hired guns, they were among the best, well-trained marksmen, and a disciplined fire team. The renegades’ escape had squashed the Marines’ and Navy’s efforts to make an example of them.

Waylon heard Garrett Victor’s gruff voice as the squad leader picked up. “What?”

“It’s Waylon. I’ve got work for you,” the businessman said. “Where are you?”

“Kickin’ back in Sydney,” Victor replied. “Having fun. Wade need help?”

“He needs avenging,” Waylon corrected.

“What the fuck?” Victor growled.

“Someone killed him, and he’s now going on an operation in Darwin,” Waylon explained. “I need this bastard taken down, preferably without the Black Rose finding out.”

“Why not get the triad to take this mook down?” Victor asked.

Waylon sighed. “And let them know that their number-one foreign asset has been compromised?”

“He’s still going to be dead. They give you another job…”

“How’d you like some fat triad money, Gar?” Waylon asked. “You and the boys living higher on the hog, and you won’t have to pull grunt work like sitting on a cargo freighter, chasing off pirates.”

Waylon could hear the gears turning in the greedy mercenary’s brain.

“This guy took out Wade, though,” Victor stated. “He’s obviously bad news.”

“That’s why I’m calling you and the boys,” Waylon explained. “The four of you could outfight anyone.”

“It’ll take us a while to get a flight to Darwin.”

“I’ll arrange it all for you. You can pick up the tickets at the counter,” Waylon informed him. “Do I have you on board, or do I have to look elsewhere for someone with balls?”

“Nobody tells me I ain’t got balls, Eugene,” Victor snarled. “I’ll rouse the boys and we’ll bring this fucker’s head to you.”

Waylon smiled, and told them at which airline they could pick up their tickets.

With a group of easily goaded, overly macho thugs like these four, Eugene Waylon could not only recover from the loss of Augustyn, but continue living in the style he was accustomed to.

But first things first. The tall man in black was going to have to die.

4

Bolan’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he plucked it out.

“We’ve got a sighting on the girl,” Bobby Yeung said. “I’ve got a man on her tail, but he’s holding back, as per your instructions.”

“Good,” Bolan replied. He pushed away his dinner plate and snapped his fingers for the waitress to bring his check. The efficiency of the Chinese gangsters was excellent, and Bolan knew he’d only needed to wait until they had spotted Arana Wangara. “No contact until I arrive.”

“You’ve got it,” Yeung answered. “The address is in text format.”

Bolan looked at it. He’d picked a small diner in the general neighborhood of the Darwin bus station, and Wangara’s location was only a few blocks away, according to the tiny GPS map screen on his phone. The waitress arrived and Bolan paid her, leaving twice as much for her tip than his meal cost.

“Keep the change,” Bolan told her and he left the restaurant, his jacket hanging loosely over his broad shoulders. Its billowing folds hid the Walther P-99 hanging in its shoulder holster. No bulge was visible, despite the fact that the weapon’s blunt suppressor was still attached.

Having memorized Wangara’s last reported position on the GPS screen, he made a beeline, altering his course to get ahead of the Aboriginal woman. Bolan didn’t want to spook her, and he knew if he took custody of her, with the Chinese gunmen alongside him, he would never be able to win her trust. The Executioner figured he needed at least a minute of privacy to explain his ruse to her, otherwise there was a good possibility that he’d be forced into a gunfight with the gangsters.

A shootout would blow Bolan’s cover with the Black Rose Triad, and potentially draw the attention of the law. Kurtzman had been able to finesse new background information for the gun dealer in order to provide Red with some cushion, and to keep tighter observation on him. The cyber expert had given Bolan a heads-up that Waylon was making calls over a heavily encrypted line. Augustyn’s paranoia had been such that he had tight security on his cell phone and Waylon’s. With a constantly morphing encryption key, it took even the Farm’s awesome computer resources more than a minute to break each phone call, and Waylon’s phone discipline was strict, hanging up before Kurtzman could determine the contents or the recipients of the call.

It was one of the reasons the Executioner had stopped off at a grocery store and bought some duct tape and a heavy-spined butcher’s knife as soon as he left the airport. Tucked under his shirt in a duct tape and cardboard sheath, the butcher’s knife was invisible under his waistband, but the foot-long blade had the power to punch through bone and heavy muscle. Two paring knives strapped to his forearms were backups, their blunt, triangular points making them good throwing weapons once he popped off their handles, turning them into front-heavy darts. With the tape-fashioned forearm sheaths, he could have whipped out the improvised throwing knives and planted them in the throats of whatever gunmen were backing Red’s play.

The fact that Red hadn’t sprung a trap on him was the only reason the Executioner hadn’t exploded into a flash of bloody action and taken his head off with the butcher’s knife. Restraint had saved the Australian black marketeer’s life, as well as those of his henchmen. Of course, Red’s honesty had only confirmed Bolan’s suspicions. He would have to return to Hong Kong to deal with the lying, traitorous Waylon.

Since visiting Red, Bolan’s improvised combat knives were supplanted. He’d put the butcher’s knife away and had replaced it with a Gerber LMF Bowie to back up his 9 mm handgun.

Bolan moved at a steady pace, mindful of appearing too aggressive. Wangara, having been stalked halfway across the continent, would be on edge, and if he approached her like a bull, she’d turn and run like hell. He didn’t need that, either. A six-foot-plus white man chasing a young Aboriginal woman through the streets would also attract unneeded attention.

He spotted Wangara, her head tucked down, white earbuds dangling around her neck. Her knapsack looked lumpy and heavy, as if it were packed with rocks rather than clothes. The Executioner realized she wasn’t going to be a pushover if anyone stepped up to her and tried anything rough. Picking up his pace, he caught up with her and slowed to match her stride. It took a few moments for her to notice him, but he was too close for her to pull down her bag and swing it to crack his head.

“Don’t make a scene, Arana,” Bolan said softly, almost soothingly. “I know you’re being chased. The people after you think I’m working for them.”

She looked up at him, brown eyes wide and fearful. The young woman took a sidestep, and only ended up bouncing against a storefront. Bolan rested his hand on her shoulder, pinning her shoulder strap in place to defang her. “I’m not looking for a fight. In fact, I don’t want you hurt at all,” he said.

Wangara looked at the hand on her shoulder, then longingly at her knapsack. She pursed her lips and sighed. “I came here looking for help. Those Chinese destroyed my home.”

“I figured as much,” Bolan answered. “I want you alive and safe. That means you have to pretend that you’re frightened of me.”

Wangara glanced up at him. “That won’t be difficult.”

The Executioner nodded. They stopped walking and Bolan checked on the two Black Rose Triad soldiers on their tail. They were closing in, relaxed. One had a smug smirk on his face, glad that they had finally gotten their job done. “Just stay close,” he said.

“I figured I was in for a rough time,” Wangara said calmly.

“You’re safe from that for now,” Bolan told her, taking her knapsack. He opened it and saw three heavy rocks. “I just need to ditch these two.”

Wangara looked at him and took a step back. “Why?”

Bolan grabbed her wrist tightly and tugged her closer. The move looked harsher than it felt. Bolan didn’t want to seem too accommodating of the young woman in front of the gangsters, but he measured the amount of force he used perfectly. “Stay close,” he repeated.

Looking back to the Chinese mobsters, he saw them slow, looks of doubt crossing their features. A deft turn of his head allowed Bolan to see what was up. A van slowed, the side panel rolled back and men in black sat perched to leap out. Bolan yanked Wangara off her feet and twisted, throwing himself through the plate-glass window of a clothing store, his broad shoulders smashing the glass and shielding the woman from shards and splinters. As his feet cleared the hole he’d created, he heard the crack of handguns filling the air. Bolan and the young woman struck the floor as bullets popped above their heads, the high velocity creating miniature sonic booms that crackled in the Executioner’s ears.

He pushed Wangara against the base of the wall with one hand, the other pulling the Walther from its shoulder leather in one swift movement. “Stay down!” he shouted.

Bolan rolled to one knee, the 9 mm pistol leading the way. He spotted a handgun-wielding Chinese man gaping at the broken window, wondering at the blur of motion that had snatched his target out of the way. The Executioner milked the trigger twice. Bullets tore into the chest of the gunman, the shooter’s dying reflex jerking him back toward the panel van, forcing his allies to stumble as they tried to get out of the vehicle.

Bolan swept his Walther to a second gunman and punched a single 9 mm pill through his ear. The Asian marauder tumbled face-first to the concrete, eliciting a cry of dismay from the van’s driver. A third and a fourth gunman exploded through the open side panel, spreading out in response to Bolan’s marksmanship. The Executioner dropped and rolled on his shoulders as a shotgun belched violently. A clothing rack above him jerked and billowed under the 12-gauge assault, pellets shredding fabric, hangers clanking on metal tubing. People in the store screamed in fear, but Bolan’s explosive entry had driven them to cover. No one had been struck by gunfire yet, except the attackers.

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