Mack Bolan wasn’t a tool of U.S. international policy

He was driven by the need to protect the victims of corruption and terrorism. Husbands, fathers, brothers and sons were executed brutally, while wives, mothers, sisters and daughters were raped and mutilated by Janjaweed forces.

The Darfur crisis, and the Rwandan slaughter a decade before, were symptomatic of an international apathy in regard to Africa. Its jungles and deserts, once colonial prizes of European governments, were considered lost causes, realms where white people had no business interfering.

Skin color didn’t enter into the Executioner’s equation of justice. The Thunder Lions were about to make the Darfur crisis even worse, which elevated them to the top of Bolan’s priority list—for a bullet.

Plains of Fire

Mack Bolan®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

—1 Peter 5:8

Human predators abound, preying on the weak, the helpless. These lions do not need taming. They need to be put down.

—Mack Bolan

To those who have made a stand and refuse to let the

world ignore the horrors at work in Darfur.

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

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

Darfur, Sudan

General Thormun “Thor” Bitturumba watched with approval as his artillery crews screwed the canister warheads onto the 240 mm rockets. The fat tubes, nearly ten inches thick, each held a concentrated mixture of biological weaponry in an inert suspension. The suspension had a vaporization point that was well over fifty degrees Fahrenheit. In the blazing African afternoon, the carrier fluid would evaporate swiftly, assisted in its dispersal by a low-temperature, high-velocity explosion designed to hurl the weaponized microbes into the air.

The viruses had toughened cellular membranes, enabling them to survive as their long cilia spread out to catch air currents and ride the wind.

Bitturumba’s satellite phone rang. He knew who it was.

“How goes the preparations, Thor?” Alonzo Cruz asked. Bitturumba smirked. Here he was, speaking with one of Spain’s most prominent businessmen, on the eve of a biological weapons test, seemingly as a gigantic spit in the face to the world. Certainly, the general realized, the multimillionaire’s sat phone had incredible encryption protection, much like his own phone. But the call, only hours before a preview of hell on Earth, would have been detected despite its indecipherable nature.

“They’re going well, Lonzo,” Bitturumba answered. “The hammer will fall at dawn.”

“No need to be cryptic, brother,” Cruz replied, the quality of the digital signal so clear and free of static that it was as if the man were right next to the African. “No one could break this call down.”

“Never say never, Lonzo,” Bitturumba admonished. “Just when we think that our keenest laid plans are going to go one way, reality takes over.”

Cruz chuckled. “The cunning animal wisdom of a warrior.”

Bitturumba sighed. “One does not rise to the rank of general without being absolutely prepared for the worst. Idi Amin was an optimist when it came to attempts on his life.”

Bitturumba’s hand absently dropped to the .50-caliber Desert Eagle on his hip. Though most experts declined to recommend the massive Israeli-designed hand-howitzer for self-defense due to its need for perfectly tailored ammunition, Bitturumba was careful in his feeding of the Desert Eagle. Its reliability and power had protected the general’s life on numerous occasions, tearing through the body armor of assassins and even shattering the thick, armored skull of an enraged bull charging at him. In no instance had the thunder pistol ever failed him. Given that his half brother, Cruz, always called him Thor, after the Norse god of thunder, the big. 50 was a welcome companion.

Bitturumba had been deemed the African god of war by many in the press, and his army had been given the nickname “Thunder Lions.” The roar of launching rockets and the thunder of 105 mm shells were his militia’s heralds on the field of battle.

“Just remember not to get caught downwind of your barrage,” Cruz warned. “I’d hate to lose blood just to run a quick test.”

“Fear not, little brother. We are prepared,” Bitturumba replied.

The phone call ended and Bitturumba raised the binoculars to his eyes once more, scanning the refugee camp in the distance. It had been established and was currently under the protection of members of the Ethiopian Expeditionary Force, a trained army of African veterans who had been subjected to enough of the horror stories emanating from Sudan. They had come in hard and fast, putting the Janjaweed forces on the defensive. Only Bitturumba’s army had been unfazed by the Ethiopian interference, but that was because Bitturumba had the same intensive military education that the EEF’s leader possessed. Both men were students of war, and theirs wasn’t a brutal slugfest as much as a show of jabs and feints as both armies looked for weaknesses in each other’s defenses.

Bitturumba’s wide lips turned up in a cruel smile. This would be the first shot that he’d launched that would bring the Ethiopian forces to their senses.

THE DISTANT SOUND of launching rockets sounded like a warthog clearing its nostrils, at least to Lieutenant Alem Tanku of the Ethiopian Expeditionary Force. The Avtomat Kalashnikov rifle that had been resting across his knees was instantly in his hands, and he jerked to his feet. On the horizon he could see the white yarns of exhaust smoke trailing from the thrust nozzles of a half-dozen rockets and he stuck his fingers into the corners of his mouth to amplify his whistle.

The shrill bleat woke the other sleepy Ethiopian troops on his side of the camp, and they began rushing along the shanty homes, rapping doors or rickety walls to awaken Sudanese refugees.

Tanku squinted as the contrails of the artillery rockets snaked across the sky. He didn’t put it past the Thunder Lions to launch a quick reconnaissance by fire with a long-distance salvo. He was halfway to the communications shed when the rockets reached the apex of their climb. Losing power, they began their descent, gravity proving stronger than burned-out chemical motors. The contrails bent sharply as the remnants of their fuel gave out, smearing flat black streaks across the graying dawn.

“Artillery launch from Thunder Lions’ recon force,” Tanku shouted as he reached the entrance of the communication shed.

The comm operator, Lieutenant Jolu Okuba, nodded, already rattling off the information.

“Launch coordinates?” Okuba relayed from headquarters.

“Six miles out,” Tanku said, eyeballing the end of the puffy dissipating arch of smoke. “Northwest, call it heading 310.”

Okuba barked the information to the Ethiopian Expeditionary Force command. He glanced nervously back toward Tanku. “The evacuation?”

“We’re rousing the civilians. Luckily, they’re early risers,” Tanku said. “This section of the camp is already filing out through the fence.”

Okuba nodded. Tanku could tell that his fellow soldier wanted to bolt from his position, but his duty kept him on station. It wouldn’t be much of a consolation when nearly ten inches of enemy warhead dropped out of the sky, delivering the punch of dozens of kilograms of high explosives. The lieutenant looked toward the descending rockets when he saw one burst into a blossom of smoky tentacles that stretched across the sky over the refugee camp.

“Gas attack!” Tanku bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Gas masks!”

Okuba whirled back to the microphone, updating the EEF’s officers about the changing nature of the rocket assault. Other rockets began detonating as they dropped within a certain height, splitting the air with sharp cracks that were unnervingly devoid of the light of flame.

That was the surest indication on Tanku’s part that they were dealing with some form of chemical assault. The Ethiopian’s face twisted into a rictus of anger as he glanced toward Okuba.

“Put your gas mask on!” Tanku snapped.

“You don’t have one!” Okuba replied. “They don’t have masks outside!”

“Just do it!” Tanku ordered.

Okuba did so. His gas mask was in the bottom drawer of his desk.

Tanku cursed himself for not bringing his mask with him, but he knew that none of the refugees would have more than a wet towel to protect their lungs from whichever chemical scourge Bitturumba’s Thunder Lions were dropping on their heads.

With the introduction of weapons of mass destruction, Tanku idly wondered if there was a possibility that the United States would take a more urgent role in the Sudanese conflict. After all, it was the fear of Muslims with chemical weaponry that started the Iraq war, and that had been spurned by far less spurious evidence than an actual chemical attack such as here.

Tanku steeled himself, waiting for the first symptoms of poison or nerve agent to appear. There wasn’t even the scent of burned almonds, indicative of cyanide gas, in the air. He knew that nerve agents were odorless and flavorless, but once they touched him, he would begin twitching uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth as he felt his insides liquefy. Unfortunately, a quick glance to Okuba reminded him that the gas masks the Ethiopians wore were thin, almost useless protection against the horrors of weapons like Sarin or Tabur.

He waited for a full minute, breathing shallowly, as if the lowered respiration would somehow protect him from the ravages of chemical weapons that could be absorbed through the skin. He looked at his deep dark forearms, imagining the colorful globules of nerve agent molecules drifting and wafting down to his skin, turning his nearly black forearms gray and diseased as they landed, penetrating living flesh to invade his bloodstream.

“Alem?” Okuba asked, his voice muffled by the gas mask.

“Keep it on,” Tanku grated. His shoulders were knotted so tight that he thought that his tensed muscles would snap his clavicle like a twig.

“I don’t think anything was released into the air,” Okuba stated. “There isn’t any reaction anywhere in the camp.”

Tanku glanced around. His fellow Ethiopian soldiers were radioing in and he could hear their voices over Okuba’s radio. They were reporting a complete lack of casualties.

“I don’t even see any harm from shrapnel released by the air-bursting rockets,” one EEF trooper announced.

Tanku’s shoulders loosened and he took a deep breath, releasing it in a sigh of relief.

“Maybe they wanted to show us that they had the means to release bio or chem agents into the air,” Okuba noted, pulling off his mask. “To let us know that we don’t have anything to stop them.”

“You think they’d really bring down the ire of the Americans?” Tanku asked. “Saddam had a chemical weapons program, at least before he shipped it off to Syria before the invasion.”

Okuba shook his head. “Iraq is full of oil. This is the Sudan. What would the Americans care about here?”

“So Bitturumba isn’t the least bit concerned that he’s opened a can of worms,” Tanku grumbled.

“We’re on our own. I can’t think of a single white man who would come over here, roll up his sleeves and fight for us,” Okuba growled.

ALEM TANKU DIDN’T FEEL a thing. He remained healthy and unaffected, even as every one of his breaths sucked down dozens of airborne viral spores, parachuting gently to ground level on their long, slender cilia. The viral organisms rode the wind and found a welcome home in the bronchial sacs lining the Ethiopian’s lungs. Billions of their brethren were finding root in the respiratory systems of hundreds of EEF soldiers and Sudanese refugees.

Once the instantaneous effects of poison gas and nerve agents seemed missing from the aerial bombardment equation, the sighs of relief only served to make it easier for the Ebola mutations to ride currents into warm places where they could latch on to permeable cells and begin to feed. Within an hour, fully gorged on genetic material, the virus spores began to propagate, multiplying. One cell became two, which then became four. Some of the newly birthed spores spread their cilia and were blown out, exhaled into the world. Normally, the hemorrhagic fever spores would have been in the bloodstream and sputum of a larger organism, such as a tick, mosquito or the mammals they fed upon. These spores, however, had been redesigned. Their viral cellular membranes were thicker, allowing them to survive outside a liquid suspension. They no longer required transfer via the mixing of bodily fluids, as when a lesser animal would bite a human.

They could take to the air, riding the exhalations of the hosts where they first bred.

That’s how Tanku infected Okuba as they clinked their metal coffee cups in a toast to surviving a supposedly inept assault by Bitturumba.

It was only after Tanku began running a fever that the sighs of relief were suspected to be death sentences. His stomach felt as if a brick had been laid inside of it, and any thought of lunch and dinner repulsed him. Half of the refugee camp had assembled for lunch, but only a few people were willing to sit for dinner, possessing an appetite. Tanku’s limbs and muscles were knotted again, but this time involuntarily. Aches ripped through his frame.

An hour after sunset, when Alem Tanku was convulsing and trembling, tears of blood rolling down his cheeks, rivulets of crimson mixed in with the mucus pouring from his nose, the first of the EEF medics developed a fever. Those who hadn’t worn simple paper masks when dealing with the victims of the hemorrhagic fever outbreak were coming down with symptoms their patients had reported much earlier. Those medical personnel who operated under infectious disease precautions were unharmed.

At dawn, the viral spores had turned Tanku’s lesser blood vessels, the fine, slender capillaries, into sieves. His tears and his sweat were crimson, filled with ruptured red cells, no longer capable of transporting oxygen to the rest of his body.

By noon, Tanku was the first to die from what the Ethiopian Expeditionary Force had named Ebola Thunder, in honor of the madman who had unleashed it upon the world.

Unfortunately he wasn’t the last, as in the next second a dozen refugees vomited the bloody slush that used to be their lungs and expired, as well.

By evening, thirteen hundred corpses were being shoveled into the bottom of a grave dug up by bulldozers. The World Health Organization resources sent to respond to an unprecedented outbreak of a new form of Ebola arrived just in time to see all but a handful of bodies turned to ash by concentrated streams of burning gasoline.

It was a preview of hell, Tanya Marshall thought. She took pictures of the carnage, documenting the destruction of the infected victim bodies in the pit.

CHAPTER TWO

Alexandria, Egypt

The three men moved quietly across the Egyptian docks, night enveloping them in a cloak of darkness that aided their stealthy approach. Rumor and gossip had brought the trio to this outlet on the Mediterranean Sea, clad in combat blacksuits and armed to the teeth.

When Mack Bolan contacted Stony Man Farm for help, the men of Phoenix Force usually stepped forward. But in this case only Rafael Encizo and Calvin James answered the call. David McCarter, Gary Manning and T. J. Hawkins had sustained various gunshot wounds, pulled muscles and ankle fractures that kept them anchored in the Blue Ridge Mountain headquarters.

James and Encizo had lost sight of Bolan, but they had no worries about the man known as the Executioner. Though more than six feet tall and carrying two hundred pounds of lean, well-honed muscle, Bolan was one of the stealthiest human beings on the planet. Moving with the sure-footed stride of a stalking panther, the Executioner was the embodiment of a ghost, flitting between shadows in the blink of an eye while creating no more sound than an errant breeze.

This night’s probe was tracing a cache of Cold War–era biological delivery systems—germ warfare shells—to Alexandria. The shells were being delivered by the Russian mafiya, and all indications from Bolan’s investigation led him to believe that they were earmarked for use in the Darfur ethnic cleansing sessions. Bolan had been intending to make his presence known in the region, to bring down the horde of madmen who engaged in wanton murder and almost ritualistic rape to destroy the non-Muslim population sharing western Sudan. The State Department across multiple presidential administrations had been handicapped by a desire not to offend Islamic governments by interfering with the Sudanese government.

Mack Bolan, however, wasn’t a tool of U.S. international policy. He was driven by the need to protect the victims of corruption and terrorism. Husbands, fathers, brothers and sons were executed brutally, while wives, mothers, sisters and daughters were raped and mutilated by the Janjaweed forces. The Darfur crisis, and the Rwandan slaughter a decade before, were symptomatic of an international apathy in regard to Africa. The jungles and deserts of the continent, once Colonial prizes of the European governments, were considered lost causes, a realm where white people had no business interfering. Bolan’s brow furrowed at the thought.

Skin color didn’t enter into the Executioner’s equations of justice. What did come to mind was the fact that Europeans had run roughshod across Africa, creating a powder keg. After stripping whatever resources they could, they left disenfranchised millions behind without a workable governmental infrastructure. The jackals who did move in took their lesson plans from their predecessors and fostered a culture of corruption and tribal retribution that helped them keep their wallets fat and their enemies cowering in fear. As long as ancient tribal feuds raged, no one would be able to accumulate enough power to unseat their corrupt rulership.

It would require an outside force to even the odds, and the Executioner and his allies were that outside interference. The fact that the Thunder Lions were the militia acquiring the lethal weapon systems put the Darfur crisis right at the top of Bolan’s priorities.

Mack Bolan was just one man and he did what he could. And when he set his mind to a task, few things could deter him. However, a sentry on patrol was about to notice that his partners, Encizo and James, were preparing to slip into the water from the end of the dock. The guard was a hardened warrior, moving with precision, his mind focused on systematic scanning of the pier. It would only be a matter of moments before he saw the Phoenix pair as they took to the water on their mission of sabotage.

Bolan stalked the Russian ex-special forces man walking patrol. He recognized the man’s Spetznaz pedigree, having encountered hundreds of them before. His disciplined military bearing, Slavic features and the scent of cheap Turkish tobacco that the Russian commandos seemed addicted to were unmistakable in combination. Add in the fact that the black-market weapons were on a Russian ship, owned by the mafiya, and it was plain to Bolan that the man was a trained commando. The muzzle of his rifle was held at waist level, finger off the trigger, but resting against the guard, ready to snap down and rip off a burst of autofire with a reflexive action.

The Executioner knew that it would only be a moment before the ex-military mob enforcer noticed the presence of his partners, or feel that Bolan was on his trail. Without a moment’s hesitation, the Executioner rose from the shadows. One of his hands clamped over the Russian’s mouth, while the other speared a hard-knuckled fist deep into the base of his adversary’s skull. The punch connected with the knot of neurons where the spine met the brain, causing an overload that paralyzed the patrolling sentry. With a savage jerk, Bolan yanked his insensate opponent back into the shadows, his arm snaking under the stunned Russian’s chin. He flexed both of his arms, and with the power of a full-grown python, he broke the unconscious man’s neck. The moment the sentry would have recovered a fraction of his senses, he would have mustered the strength to pull the trigger on his rifle, alerting the rest of his allies. Given that the guard was ex-military and working for organized crime, Bolan could live with the fact that he most likely had sent a murderer to justice.

A quick glance around the dock told him that the rest of the Russians on the outlaw freighter hadn’t noticed their guard disappear. Moving swiftly, Bolan peeled the corpse out of its jacket, then the red-and-white-striped sailor shirt, pulling them both on. He’d used a small utility knife to cut slashes in the side of the dead man’s T-shirt to allow himself access to his battle harness and shoulder-holstered Beretta, while still concealing his blacksuit and war load from casual inspection. He tucked the Russian’s cell phone and hand radio into his jacket pocket.

“Took out the snooper, continuing his patrol pattern,” Bolan said softly into his throat mike as he stepped out onto the dock.

There was the sound of two clicks, Encizo and James responding nonverbally to his transmission. The two men were underwater now and wouldn’t have seen Bolan take down the sentry and appropriate his clothing. They pressed the transmit buttons on their radios, the only way they could communicate with him while just below the waves, breathing through snorkels. Secure in the knowledge that his allies wouldn’t mistakenly target him, Bolan followed the guard’s regularly scheduled route.

“Guys,” a voice called over the radio in Russian. “Pull back in. We have the headlight signal.”

“Affirmative,” Bolan grunted in Russian, keeping his voice low. The Executioner made an about-face and returned to the freighter. Riflemen were posted on the railing, but their attention was on the burning pairs of headlights rolling down the back streets. In the shadowy light of the dock, neither of the sentries would have been able to see each other, which was an advantage. The men on the pier would be hard to target by any incoming force. The lack of light was no disadvantage to a Spetznaz commando.

Bolan could see the shadowy outline of the other Russian who had been patrolling the pier. He bracketed the other side of the gangplank, his eyes fixed on the newcomers.

“Anatoly,” the man whispered, “I heard that the stupid bastards used some of our shells last night.”

Bolan shrugged.

“I don’t like it,” the guard continued. “If we get caught with the rest of their shipment in our hold, we’ll bring down a shit storm.”

Bolan nodded.

The Thunder Lion convoy rolled to a halt, its headlights off. Bolan counted six vehicles, four of them SUVs, two of them two-and-a-half-ton trucks, which were workhorses and more than capable of carting off enough bioartillery to render Central Africa a lifeless wasteland. The members of the Thunder Lion crew were all tall, strong men with black skin and grim expressions. They assembled in front of their vehicles, all of them packing high-tech French FAMAS rifles.

One man stepped forward. If the clusters of medals on his left breast hadn’t set him apart from the rest of his crew, the broad smile on his lips did. Bolan searched his mental mug book, comparing the African to known members of the Thunder Lion hierarchy, finally deciding that the commander was Major Antoine Bashir. The major had a particularly notorious reputation, having started his career as the chief muscle for a Corsican arms dealer.

That explained the presence of French rifles and sidearms. A quick examination of the SUVs in the darkness reinforced the link between the Thunder Lions and the Union Corse. The four off-road vehicles were top-of-the-line Peugeot designs. They sat low on their wheelbases, betraying their armored status, meaning they’d “fallen off a shipment” meant for the French military.

“Cheer up, lads,” Bashir said, clapping Bolan on the shoulder. “You’ll be back floating to the Baltic, rotting your guts out on vodka before dawn.”

Bolan held his tongue, keeping an eye on the militiamen spread out in front of him. All it would take would be a step back and he’d fall off the pier and into the waters next to the ship, taking him out of harm’s way for a moment. He had no doubt, though, that the rifle fire from the railing would punch through the old docks and into the water after him. The AK-107 in his hands was a modern update of the highly successful AK-47, right down to the powerful 7.62 mm ComBloc round. The only changes were synthetics replacing wood, and modern metallurgy increasing the old design’s already rock-solid durability and reliability. The other Russian smugglers were similarly armed.

Encizo and James were only carrying pistol-caliber machine pistols. This was supposed to be a stealth infiltration, meant for sabotage. The addition of a platoon of militiamen to the mix was unexpected.

“Hull ripper charges set,” Encizo’s voice said through Bolan’s earpiece. “Give the word.”

Bolan looked at Bashir strolling up the gangplank. The militia officer would provide the Executioner with a wealth of information. However, plucking him from between his own armed soldiers and the paranoid Russian gangsters would require a major distraction.

“Fire ’em up,” Bolan said out loud. He whirled and charged up the gangplank toward Bashir.

The Thunder Lion riflemen jerked in reaction to Bolan’s sudden movement, their FAMAS rifles rising after a second of hesitation. On the railing, the Russian smugglers, already on edge, simply had to pull the triggers on their own rifles, spraying the militiamen.

The freighter shook violently as spiderweb-shaped charges, strung along her hull, erupted. Detonating high-explosive cord cut through the sea-weathered steel at high velocity, shearing half a dozen five-foot breaches in her belly. The sudden influx of hundreds of gallons of water disturbed the balance of the freighter.

The gangplank bent deeply, buckling as the weight of the old steamer shoved on it. Finally the wooden walkway splintered, but not before Bolan snaked an arm around Bashir’s neck and yanked him over the guide rope. The Executioner and his captive hurtled through the darkness toward the rapidly fluxing gap between the ship and the pier.

Bashir grunted in response to the sudden capture attempt as the two of them sliced through the air, dropping past the guillotine formed by the freighter, and the pier snapped shut. Planks splintered under the impact of thousands of tons of upset steel, the jolt knocking both Russian and African gunmen off balance. Their weapons chattered, but the jarring lurch of the ship against the dock kept either side from maintaining any semblance of accuracy.

Under the churning surface stirred up by the suddenly sinking ship, Bashir thrashed wildly in Bolan’s grasp. While the Executioner had been ready for the daredevil dive, filling his lungs on the way down, the African militiaman was not so prepared, aspirating water. Bolan kicked along, trying to escape the currents formed as six holes in the belly of the ship provided a direction for the water to go. If he didn’t keep pushing toward the surface, he’d be yanked into the ruptured hull and trapped.

Bashir’s hand lashed out, clawing at Bolan’s face. The Thunder Lion’s thumb raked across the Executioner’s eyelid, the nail scratching skin. Bolan grimaced, and tightened his grip on Bashir’s throat, the choke hold jolting his captive. Instead of going after his adversary’s face, Bashir struggled with the arm snaked under his chin.

It would have to be enough, Bolan thought as he used all the power in his legs and his free arm to drag himself and his captive toward the surface. Rushing water pushed in the opposite direction, but the Executioner was a strong swimmer. Years of warfare had given him the physical prowess necessary for him to breach the waves and fill his lungs with a lifesaving gasp of air.

Then it was Bashir’s turn, Bolan rolling on his back and shoving his face up into the air. The militia commander gurgled, vomiting up a lungful of water and sucking down a fresh breath before Bolan folded his body, knifing into the depths again. On the surface, the big American had heard the chatter of automatic weapons as the Russians and Africans engaged in a firefight. He was certain that James and Encizo were batting cleanup, making sure that neither side received an advantage. Their suppressed MP-5s enabled them to snipe with impunity, as autoweapons produced flash and noise. Invisible amid the roar of enemy rifles and the burning flares at their muzzles, the Phoenix Force warriors could fire from cover and concealment. It would make up for the reduced range and power of their machine pistols.

Bolan’s powerful limbs pulled him under the water, and he swam with his captive until they reached a jetty twenty yards from the stern of the lurching craft. He reached up and anchored himself on the low-slung dock.

Bashir had recovered enough of his senses to break loose, hammering Bolan in the stomach. The African had intended to knock the wind out of the Executioner, but his fist’s power was blunted by rock-hard abdominal muscles. Instead of catching Bolan while both of his hands were occupied and he was off balance, Bashir only elicited a sudden surge, Bolan snapping the African’s forehead against the hard edge of the jetty. The water-worn wood met Bashir’s skull with a stunning impact, splitting the skin on the man’s forehead.

Stunned, blood pouring down his head and stinging his eyes, Bashir was a docile charge that Bolan heaved up onto the planks. With a kick, and the power of both of his arms, Bolan launched out of the water and knelt next to his stunned captive.

Bashir wiped his eyes free of the blinding blood and began to sit up when he noticed the massive .44 Magnum Desert Eagle leveled at his nose.

“Don’t move,” Bolan ordered. He planted his knee into Bashir’s chest, then looked toward the gunfight between the smugglers and the Thunder Lions. Broken planks and dented hull were fused together, and the Russian and African factions had ceased their mutually destructive battle to escape being sucked under the water by the sinking ship. The Peugeots and the transport trucks lurched and slid off the dock, creating fountaining splashes as they hit the water.

Bolan looked back down to Bashir. “Roll over and place your hands at the small of your back.”

“Don’t kill me,” Bashir begged, his face a glistening mask of blood.

“Do as I say, and you’ll live at least another day,” the Executioner promised.

Bashir glanced at the carnage, watching men scrambling across railings and broken piers and splashing helplessly in the dock waters. In the space of a few seconds, his captor had turned a major arms deal into pure mayhem. He rolled onto his stomach and assumed the position of surrender.

CHAPTER THREE

Calvin James gunned the engine on the Fiat, swinging it around to rendezvous with Bolan.

The Executioner strode forward. He had Major Antoine Bashir by the collar, his hands bound behind him, the omnipresent Desert Eagle screwed against the prisoner’s ear.

“That’s a hell of a souvenir,” James said, pulling up to the end of the boardwalk. Rafael Encizo sat in the shotgun seat, MP-5 at the ready, scanning for the opposition. The Russians and the Africans were still busy escaping the destruction of a multiton freighter grinding down on a pier, but all it would take would be two or three men with rifles to turn their Fiat into a sieve with a blast of automatic rifle fire.

“Take him to the safe house,” Bolan told James. “I’m not finished yet.”

James glanced back at the carnage that he and Encizo had inflicted with their sabotage efforts. “You’re going to slip in among the Russians?”

Bolan nodded. “It will take them a few moments before they realize that a third party caused all this ruckus. Hopefully, Bashir’s second in command will take in the surviving Russians.”

Bolan gave Bashir’s collar a sharp tug as the African militiaman’s eyes grew wide at the sound of his own name. “Yes. I know your name. And I know that Captain Aflaq is your aide and principal bodyguard.”

“Want me to talk to him?” James asked, pantomiming an injection. With Encizo’s aid, the Phoenix Force medic would undoubtedly strip Bashir’s defenses and whatever intelligence he carried with him via a shot of scopolamine. The drug was a powerful inhibitor, making people more susceptible to questions and suggestion, and James was skilled enough to administer the drug without causing undue cardiac stress.

“Do it,” Bolan said. “I’ll see if I can get anything on the Russians and the Thunder Lions, then get some wheels and meet you back at the safe house.”

Encizo helped Bolan push Bashir into the backseat of the Fiat. Bolan’s statement of getting his own wheels wasn’t lost on the Cuban. “Bring me back something nice and shiny.”

Bolan glanced around. “In this neighborhood?”

Encizo chuckled. “Take care, Striker.”

The Executioner whirled and disappeared into the shadows.

BOLAN FLIPPED OPEN Anatoly’s cell phone and went through the programmed numbers. His limited knowledge of Russian Cyrillic symbols helped him to decipher the dead sentry’s phone book, and he had the name of the man who was likely Anatoly’s field supervisor, a Russian midlevel crime boss named Grigorei. He hit Send, then stuffed a pair of disposable earplugs up his nostrils to add to his planned ruse.

The phone rang, and Grigorei answered on the third ring.

“Anatoly?” Grigorei asked.

“Where is everybody?” Bolan asked, his words slurred and distorted by the earplugs blocking his exhalations. It was a simple means of disguising his voice.

“Anatoly?” Grigorei asked again. Bolan waited a moment.

“It’s me,” Bolan answered. “I got smacked in the face with a plank. I think my nose is broken.”

“Sounds like it,” Grigorei said. “What the hell happened on the gangplank?”

“I saw a flash of metal in the distance,” Bolan responded. “I thought they were going after the African.”

Bolan heard Grigorei’s voice, muffled by a hand. “Anatoly is confirming that there were third-party snipers.”

“That sounds possible,” Aflaq said. “Neither of our groups had pistol-caliber submachine guns, and yet I have wounds on several of my men matching low-powered carbine hits.”

“Same here,” Grigorei concurred. The Russian’s voice grew clearer as he removed his hand. “Anatoly, where are you?”

“Hard to tell, all these docks look the same,” Bolan lied. “Especially since all I have is one eye working.”

“Where is Bashir?” Aflaq’s voice was audible over the speakerphone function of Grigorei’s set.

“I lost track of him. We got separated. I tried to hold on to him, but he fought too much.” It was a partial truth. Bolan simply omitted the fact that when he became separated from Bashir, it was on dry land and into the custody of Calvin James and Rafael Encizo.

“Sadly, the major is a poor swimmer,” Aflaq said.

“I’m sorry,” Bolan returned.

“I’m sure you are,” Aflaq responded.

Bolan tensed. He could detect the skepticism in the African militiaman’s voice.

“We’ll send someone for you,” Grigorei explained. “Head to the nearest access road.”

“Sure,” Bolan replied. He snapped the cell phone closed and glanced around. He still retained the AK-47 he’d taken from Anatoly, but the assault rifle would make far too much noise. He knelt and dismantled the Beretta 93-R and the Heckler & Koch MP-5. Both the 9 mm handgun and the machine pistol had suppressors mounted on them, and he had to make certain their mechanisms were in good condition. A quick examination confirmed that they were ready for the upcoming fight. The quiet guns would be his advantage. The AK-47’s dunking wouldn’t have proved a problem even if Bolan had swum through sewage thick enough to stand a fork in. The Desert Eagle would require a more intensive inspection, but he didn’t have time for the detail stripping necessary to restore his confidence in the massive handgun.

He wrapped a length of cloth around his head, covering one eye to give himself as much of a cushion of uncertainty on the part of his enemy as possible. The AK hung in full view, loose on its lanyard. Bolan limped to a corner to maintain his ruse as the battered Anatoly.

If the voices of Aflaq and Grigorei together hadn’t convinced Bolan that the two factions had reunited in the wake of the freighter’s destruction, then the sight of a jeepload of white and black men sitting side by side and armed to the teeth with assault rifles would have clinched it. Fortunately, the Executioner was fully aware that the surviving gunmen from the covert meeting had banded together. He swept the shadows in alleys, looking for the betraying signs of a jeep heading down a parallel road to flank him.

Bolan’s hand radio hissed to life through the universal earplug he’d locked into it.

“We see him,” came a Russian voice. Bolan was glad that when he’d looked through Anatoly’s cell phone, he’d found the emergency alternate frequency for the Russian gangsters’ communication. Sure enough, they doubted the Executioner’s identity as one of their own, because they were speaking over the channel that Anatoly had put into a memo note on his cell phone. As the jeep rolled closer, Bolan bided his time, knowing that his ruse was crumbling rapidly.

“Is he reacting to you?” Grigorei’s voice asked. “Try to take him alive. We could get some information out of him.”

“Right, sir,” the gangster in the jeep said.

That was all the Executioner needed to hear. He whirled, bringing up the silenced MP-5 like a handgun, his other hand tugging his fake bandage aside, then unleathering the Beretta in his shoulder holster. Bolan’s initial salvo of suppressed slugs chugged out of the end of the blunt canister. Since the suppressor only captured the muzzle gases without retarding the velocity of the 9 mm rounds in the magazine, he had opted for extra-heavyweight, subsonic 9 mm rounds—squat, fat barrels of lead with a flat, ugly nose meant for contacting as much enemy flesh as possible, all wrapped around an overweight core of dense tungsten. The Parabellum slugs erupted out of the suppressor at a speed of 1000 feet per second, just slow enough to avoid producing a supersonic crack, but the bullets weighed in at a full 180-grains, more than sufficient to produce the kind of momentum and penetration that made up for the subsonic velocity.

The jeep’s windshield disintegrated, shattered glass and deformed blobs of lead and tungsten vaulting into the face and chest of the African militiaman at the wheel. The broken windshield carved only minor slashes on the Thunder Lion’s face, but the quiet and deadly bullets smashed through the driver’s rib cage, shattering bone into splinters and tumbling petals of flattened lead whirling like the blades of a lawn mower to slash brutally through lung tissue. The coalition jeep lurched violently as one slug stopped cold in the thick and heavy muscle of the African’s heart, dying reflex causing him to jerk the steering wheel violently to the right. The dead man’s companions scrambled to bring up their assault rifles and return fire, but their formerly steady platform was now out of control, forcing them to pay more attention to hanging on for dear life than opening fire on the Executioner.

Bolan had his Beretta up and firing, punching bullets into the head of the gunman in the shotgun seat. They cracked open the skull of the Russian mobster sitting beside the slain driver and burrowed through his brain to turn his central nervous system into whipped froth. The jeep rocketed along, an African militiaman in the back of the vehicle lunging wildly to grab at the steering wheel.

No amount of turning could have saved the three men in the back as the driver’s heavy, dead foot was jammed into the gas pedal, speeding them into a confrontation with the back wall of a warehouse. The hood crumpled violently, and the Thunder Lion who had striven to reach the steering wheel was launched head-first through the remnants of the windshield, his face torn free by the jagged wrinkles of the collapsed nose of the jeep. Fortunately for the mutilated gunman, his suffering at the loss of his face was measured in nanoseconds. The top of his skull met the stone wall of the warehouse, and his vertebrae burst and collapsed. A spear of bone shoved deep into the socket of the man’s brain, killing him before his neurons could even register the pain of his nose and cheeks torn from his facial structure.

“He’s onto us!” a voice yelled over Anatoly’s radio. Bolan heard the echo of the Russian’s voice emanating from an alley off to his right, informing him that the flanking maneuver he’d anticipated was in motion. Had they tried it against any other man, they might have had a chance, but the Executioner’s years of experience and his ability to improvise had given him a killing edge. Bolan rushed toward the crushed jeep, the two surviving gunmen crawling out of its backseat, oblivious to his presence. He spared the briefest of moments, his boot lashing out to render the survivors insensate with well-placed kicks. They were both unarmed, the force of the crash ripping the rifles out of their hands, and the onset of shock helped the remaining Russian to forget about the handgun in his hip holster. Rather than slaughter helpless opponents, Bolan put them out of commission, preferring to save his ammo for the alternate force coming up behind him.

The strike team arrived only a second after Bolan’s estimate, which was to the warrior’s advantage. He had the drop on the enemy force, and had put the wreckage of the jeep between himself and their rifles. Firing from a position of cover and knowing his enemy’s angle of approach, Bolan had put all the cards in his favor. He gave the members of the African and Russian team time to expose themselves as they exited the alley, then triggered the MP-5 and Beretta. The suppressors on the weapons swallowed the muzzle-flash and bark, which would have betrayed the Executioner’s position, while the rear frame of the jeep provided him with a solid rest position to assist him in controlling the two weapons he fired simultaneously.

The Russian mafiya leader screamed as a stream of bullets from the MP-5 drilled into his heart, multiple tungsten-cored slugs burrowing through the tough muscle and smashing his spine on the way out. An African militiaman to his left vomited blood as a Beretta round crushed his windpipe.

With two of their number down in a heartbeat, the remaining quartet of smugglers and troopers panicked, their rifles spitting out wild streams, fanning the shadows. The jeep’s wreckage shook as bullets were stopped by its massive bulk, protecting the Executioner.

“Any movement?” one of the African militiamen asked as Bolan listened on the Russians’ party line.

“Negative,” a smuggler responded. “Step out and have a look.”

“Fuck you,” the Thunder Lion responded. “He’d just shoot me while playing possum.”

The Russian chuckled. “But then we’d know where he was.”

Bolan held back a sigh that would have lamented his opponents’ lack of radio discipline. Rather, he hauled the corpse of the Russian in the shotgun seat to the ground, then triggered a burst of AK fire from the dead man’s rifle.

That brought a salvo of concentrated autofire down on the front seat of the jeep. The corpse of the driver jerked violently under the combined storm of lead that hammered him. Bolan shouted, approximating the Russian’s voice, to stop shooting. He grabbed the dead mobster by the back of the neck and pushed his head above the jeep, using his other hand to wave the corpse’s arm.

“It’s me!” Bolan shouted.

“Fuck. Boris! I could have killed you!” one of the Russians called. “What happened?”

“I was hit pretty hard when we crashed. Where is everybody?”

The quartet of gunmen broke from cover, moving low and quickly toward the jeep. Their intent was to hook up with their surviving ally, as he was behind some of the best cover on the street.

Instead, Bolan tossed the dead man aside and fired his AK across the front seat. The Russian at the front of the pack screamed as his belly burst open under the onslaught of rifle bullets. Intestines boiled from his savaged abdomen, thick loops of entrails sagging down to his knees. Somehow, the gangster had the strength to continue standing as the rifle rounds zipped through his ruined guts and out his back, tearing into the trio behind him.

One of the Thunder Lions whipped around in a circle as the high-velocity devastators pulverized his pelvis. As his finger was on the trigger as he was hit, his FAMAS rifle spoke, snarling a violent death song in response to his crippling. Rather than hit Bolan, his muzzle had swung around and jammed into the groin of his fellow African. The front sight snagged on the pants of his partner, holding the barrel there as thirteen rounds burned away the rifleman’s crotch and upper thighs. In blind anger and rage, the wounded victim stuffed his own rifle under the crippled Thunder Lion’s chin and pulled the trigger, bullets pulling trails of brain out of his murderer’s skull in a volcano of gooey tissue. Both African militiamen flopped to the street, one with his brains blown out, the other rapidly bleeding to death as his femoral arteries jetted streams of thick crimson onto the concrete.

The last of the Russian smugglers whirled and ran as Bolan’s borrowed AK cycled dry. The Executioner let the empty rifle fall to the ground as he vaulted past the dead driver and the dying remnants of the flanking force. The mobster’s fighting discipline had disappeared at the sight of his allies chopped to ribbons by one man. The way he ran, clutching one uselessly dangling arm, had also indicated that the Russian had taken a bullet.

Bolan knew that the gangster’s first instinct would be to get back to his closest allies.

Settling into a ground-eating pace and sticking to the shadows, the Executioner tailed his quarry, knowing that he’d have a chance to finish off the last of the mobsters who’d thrown in their lot with the Thunder Lions.

It was a simple message, Bolan mused.

Seek profit from helping in the Sudanese slaughter, and your only wages will be the wrath of the Executioner’s cleansing flame.

CAPTAIN AFLAQ LISTENED to the rattle of distant gunfire and dying screams, then glanced over to Yuri Grigorei, his brow furrowed in disdain.

“I thought the mafiya had the services of Russia’s finest warriors.” Venom dripped from Aflaq’s every word.

Grigorei sneered at the African militiaman. “What would a scumbag like you know about anything Russian?”

Aflaq’s nose wrinkled, but he shook off the insult. “Now is not the time for us to be at each other’s throats. Someone stumbled onto us, and they have done an excellent job at turning this deal to shit.”

“Your enemies?” Grigorei asked.

Aflaq shook his head. “The goat-fucking primitives and their Ethiopian defenders don’t have enough brain cells combined to even spell Alexandria, let alone send a covert operations team here.”

“Setting off a bomb in an Egyptian harbor isn’t the style of the CIA,” Grigorei noted. “And there isn’t another crime organization with the kind of reach to touch us here.”

The Russian’s eyes narrowed as he saw a shadow in the distance. “That idiot.”

Aflaq followed the Russian’s line of sight and saw a man running down the street toward their position. His arm hung uselessly at his side and his pale features were twisted into a mask of terror and pain.

“He’s leading the enemy to us!” Grigorei snapped. “Everyone! Harden up!”

Aflaq’s hand tightened around the pistol grip of his rifle. “You’ll frighten off our adversaries, yelling like that.”

Grigorei glared at the African. “If we do, then we’ll live another day.”

Aflaq shook his head in disbelief at such a naked display of cowardice on the Russian’s part. Still, there was the evidence of nine men shredded into lifeless sacks of meat in the length of a minute. It was possible that it could have only been three-to-one odds, but none of his men had survived long enough to estimate the size of the force that had killed them.

Could it have been one man, utilizing psychology and stealth to strike at the forces who outnumbered him when they were at their weakest and most underprepared?

If so, then Aflaq counted the men around him. Adding in Grigorei and himself, he had twelve gunmen total. Thirteen if the bewildered, wounded fool jogging frantically toward their position recovered his wits long enough to utilize the handgun he wore on his belt. For someone who’d snuffed out nine men in under sixty seconds, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

“Flashlights!” Aflaq ordered. “Get some lights on the shadows! A herd of elephants could walk by in this murk!”

He received a nod of approval from the surviving leader of the Russian smugglers. Cones of light splayed out, slicking apart the darkness, seeking out the lone opponent who’d turned their arms deal into a wash of carnage.

Yuri Grigorei swung his rifle, following the diameter of light thrown off by one of his men. He wanted to be on the spot to take out the bane of this evening.

Aflaq watched in disbelief as three explosions erupted on the side of Grigorei’s head, geysers of gore vomiting out and spraying his face as he looked at the Russian’s dying shudders. More bullets flew, striking only at the Russians, all except for the wounded, terrified man who simply folded into a fetal position when he saw his friends shriek and die under a hail of silent, brutal death.

Aflaq’s own Thunder Lions were untouched.

“Captain Aflaq,” a voice said from Grigorei’s radio.

Aflaq looked down at the corpse, the small electronic device speaking his name.

Bolan’s voice cut over the airwaves. “Pick up his radio. He won’t have any use for it.”

Aflaq picked up the radio. “Hello?”

“Captain. I’m giving you a courtesy call. Tell General Bitturumba that if he was trying to seek my disapproval, he found it,” Bolan said. “The predatory scum among you who call yourselves Muslim militiamen know who I am. I am God’s wrath for your twisting of the path he laid out for you. Surrender and retirement will save your life, once you send my message to Bitturumba.”

“He would surely kill me,” Aflaq answered.

“Then phone him. And hide,” Bolan retorted.

Aflaq looked around. “Are you…?”

A bullet smacked violently into Grigorei’s slack face, the round exploding through flesh and bone.

“Small talk is over. You have my message,” Bolan said.

Aflaq listened to the static on the other end of the line, feeling the darkness of the dock grow deeper and colder as he waited for another act of wrath.

But the Executioner had moved on.

There were other matters to attend to before the sun rose.

CHAPTER FOUR

Alexandria, Egypt

The Executioner had let his guns remain silent, but he was far from through with the Thunder Lion contingent of survivors. The men gathered into two vehicles, seven men stuffed into the jeeps that hadn’t been hurled into Alexandria harbor by the sinking Russian smuggling ship. Aflaq had taken a moment to put two bullets into each of the other pair of SUVs to cripple them.

Too bad for Aflaq that the bullets went into the radiators of the jeeps. Bolan was able to affect repairs on one of the jeeps by jury-rigging a patch with swatches of duct tape and a flat plate of metal that he’d kicked off a rusted section of fender. With the improvised patch in place, sealing the radiator’s leak, all Bolan required was a discarded soda bottle and water from the harbor to refill the radiator. Aflaq had been in too much of a hurry to efficiently cripple the abandoned vehicles. He’d seen them as nails, and his gun as the only hammer. Had it been Bolan, he’d have manually gone through the engines, slicing apart hoses and tearing out the alternator generator, hurling it into the bay.

Bolan was taking his time, allowing his quarry to move along toward their destination. He spent the time grabbing spare jerricans of gasoline off the second crippled jeep, and removing its battery, loading it into the back of his repaired ride. With the gas and battery, Bolan would be able to devise some high-intensity improvised explosive devices to even the odds when he paid a visit to the Thunder Lions’ safe haven in Alexandria. Satisfied that his preparations were complete, he flipped open his satellite phone. He was connected to Stony Man Farm immediately.

“They have a two-minute lead, Striker,” Aaron Kurtzman said. “They’re moving slow, though. I think they’re trying to make sure no one’s on their tail.”

“Too bad for them that they’re being tailed by eyes five thousand miles above them,” Bolan countered. “I gave Aflaq a real shot of terror and he will keep an eye on his six. He needs to think that there’s no leash. He sees my headlights in his rearview, I won’t have a chance to visit the rest of the militia’s presence in Alexandria.”

“We’re not lying down on the job here, Striker,” Kurtzman said. “I’ve got his path downloaded to your PDA.”

Bolan nodded, patting the pocket where the compact personal digital assistant was tucked away. “Any data processed from Cal’s interrogation of Bashir?”

“Nothing so far. He’s got the camera and mike set up, but he’s still running the interrogation baseline,” Kurtzman replied. Bolan understood the difficulty of a proper chemical interrogation. Baseline truth or false reactions had to be recorded to ensure the veracity of subsequent answers. Bashir would be hooked up to a polygraph machine to not only register unconscious reflexive responses to lying, but to monitor Bashir’s cardiological responses to the scopolamine. If the militia commander was under too much stress from the addition of the “truth serum” to his bloodstream, the stress would show on the polygraph and James would be able to head off a heart attack.

“Bashir must have had some medical difficulty for Cal to take so long in preparation,” Bolan noted. “He probably lost too much blood from his head knock and his pressure was low.”

“I’ve learned not to doubt your deductive skills, Striker. I’ll keep you updated on Aflaq.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Bear.”

Bolan slid behind the wheel and took off, driving parallel to the Thunder Lions’ path. It took little effort to catch up to and shadow the African militia survivors as they limped toward their safe haven in Alexandria. The Executioner let his quarry have their lead, knowing that once they had settled in, their nerves would be less tightly wound. Right now, the Thunder Lions were on edge, and would be alert to his presence. Bolan rarely tried to go against a full-alert security force, preferring to use stealth and surprise as his force multiplier. Thanks to his interference at the arms deal, however, the militiamen would be prepared for any assault. A direct intervention right now would be a steel trap snapping down on the Executioner’s neck.

The Thunder Lions pulled into an abandoned hotel and Bolan stayed back five hundred yards. He picked an apartment building and scurried up the fire escape, crawling all the way to the rooftop. From there, he had a clear vantage point over the militia safe house. He pulled out a monocle, a compact unit that not only had low-light amplification, but was a full ten power magnification. Even from five hundred yards away, Bolan was able to see the faces of grim, edgy militiamen, their eyes sharp and alert for intruders in the area. Following one sentry on patrol, Bolan received a guided tour of the Thunder Lions’ security setup for the evening. All the information that he gathered would be supplemented by downward-looking radar and infrared scans of the hotel, the powerful eyes in the sky Stony Man Farm “borrowed” from the National Reconnaissance Office.

Satisfied with his telescopic intel gathering, Bolan took his sputtering SUV back to the warehouse that he’d set up as his base. The duct tape patch was loosening on the radiator, but the engine wasn’t being stressed by off-road travel or high-speed pursuit. Normal street traffic was still enough to start wisps of steam and smoke to dribble from under the hood. Bolan kept his speed low, nurturing the vehicle until he pulled into the loading dock. The engine finally seized up, overheated.

“This is my nice shiny new ride?” Encizo asked from the doorway. He scanned the road behind Bolan out of ingrained habit. Though the Cuban’s partners in Phoenix Force and the Executioner were all skilled in the art of evading pursuit and tails, complacency was a mind-set that would get him killed. Bolan knew that Encizo’s Heckler & Koch USP pistol was supplemented by an AK-47 propped behind the loading-bay door. Had someone proved stealthy enough to avoid Bolan’s attention, Encizo’s belt-and-suspenders approach to security would have picked them up, and the Phoenix warrior would be ready for battle.

“If you wash it, it’ll shine,” Bolan noted. “But you might want to fix the radiator first.”

Encizo chuckled.

“Got anything interesting from Bashir yet?” Bolan asked.

“We’re taking a short break. Bear let us know you were coming back to us,” Encizo stated. “As it is, we’re held up on Bashir. He’s not healthy enough to handle a full-court press.”

“I figured that Cal might have to shore him up from blood loss.”

“If I didn’t know that you had spoken to Aaron a half hour ago, I’d swear you were psychic.”

Bolan shrugged. “Bashir seemed stabilized when I left him with you.”

“We had to aggravate the cut you put on his forehead,” Encizo noted. “Don’t forget, we’re not the Executioner. People’s bowels don’t turn to ice water when we glare at them.”

Bolan patted his friend on the shoulder, chuckling. “You two can do things I can’t. That’s why I have you on my side. C’mon, let’s go put a little scare into Bashir.”

The pair secured the loading dock, then went to the interrogation room as Calvin James gave Major Bashir a refresher dose of scopolamine. Bashir’s eyes widened at the sight of the Executioner. Bolan’s lips turned up in a humorless grin.

“Please,” Bashir sputtered. “I’m talking as fast as I can.”

“Just keep talking,” Bolan told him, his voice as cold and hard as a gravestone. “I’m happy to listen.”

Bashir sang, desperate to please the Executioner.

Darfur, Sudan

BITTURUMBA KNEW IT WAS early, but he poured himself a tumblerful of brandy, his eyes tracking across the desk to glare at Kedzi Kartennian.

“So we lost the second shipment of canister shells?” Bitturumba asked.

Kartennian nodded.

The general sloshed the brandy around, not caring that he was bruising the body of the liquor. He took a deep swig and grimaced. “To whom?”

“Aflaq called in and said that it was an American. The Russians described him, as well, as someone they feared,” Kartennian stated.

Bitturumba looked over the olive-skinned Turk. “You’re kidding, right?”

Kartennian shook his head. “One man, they said.”

“I sent twenty-four fully armed men!”

“And only seven, including Aflaq, survived.”

“Where’s Bashir?” Bitturumba asked.

“Aflaq said he’s at the bottom of the harbor,” Kartennian said.

Bitturumba sneered. “Where did he get that information from?”

“From the lone crusader,” Kartennian stated. “Who’d disguised himself as one of the Russian smugglers.”

“So Bashir is alive,” Bitturumba mumbled.

“What?”

“Bashir’s alive. I don’t know how well he is, but he’s in enemy hands,” the Thunder Lion chief stated. He took another swig, looking at the big machete lying on his desk. It was a well-worn blade, its edge gleaming and slender from multiple sharpenings, the thick spine displaying a slight curve from countless impacts as it sheared through bone and heavy muscle. He reached out and flicked a speck of flesh from a small crack in the spine.

“Any chance of recovering him?” Kartennian asked.

Bitturumba shook his head. “No worries. Bashir knows where our bases are in the Sudan, but he doesn’t know the actual plan. He’s expendable.”

“And the others?” Kartennian pressed.

“Have them go on soft alert. I’m pretty certain that Aflaq was followed back to the fallback,” Bitturumba stated. “This American’s going to close in on him, and I want to provide a delaying action. Perhaps even expend some of this mysterious warrior’s resources.”

“The American has always been said to fight alone,” Kartennian noted.

Bitturumba smirked. “If he even exists. It’s a psychological ploy. He has backup, and he has resources. We lay a trap for him. Call your friends in the Muslim Brotherhood. We won’t let Aflaq know that he has backup. I want a ring of fire and steel ready to collapse on the American and his allies when he goes after the backup base.”

“Why would he go there?” Kartennian asked. “He knows that we’ll be ready for him, and that we might even call in additional support for our people.”

“I’ve heard this man’s legend. He is nothing if not thorough,” Bitturumba stated. “He will visit flame and death upon our organization. He will destroy our forces in Alexandria, leaving their corpses as a signpost to our inability to maintain our security.”

“To send a message to us,” Kartennian mused.

Bitturumba nodded. “He’ll wait a while, so we have time to marshal a force to bolster the remaining men. Let Aflaq know that this is to be a scorched-earth defense. No amount of sacrifice is too much.”

“He told me that you’d say something like that,” Kartennian relayed. “He told me that he was willing to die for the cause. We will cleanse our lands of the unbelieving scum, praise God.”

Bitturumba looked at Kartennian, then mechanically muttered, “Praise be unto him.”

The burly militia commander paid lip service to the Muslim Turk’s utterance. While he’d been raised by a moderate Islamic mother, Bitturumba had no real stake in any organized religious faith. He put on the facade of one of the faithful, however, only because those fanatics threw their support behind him. Bitturumba used their blind insanity to bolster his climb to power, creating one of the most powerful militias in Africa. The Prophet, however, held no sway over Bitturumba’s decision-making, no more than the Christian Messiah held any sway over his half brother Alonzo Cruz.

There was only one god that Bitturumba surrendered himself to, and that was himself. As the Thunder Lions grew in power, so did he. Many in the militia had transferred their worship from the Prophet to the African thunder god who wielded a hammer that would rock the entire world. His half brother, a European sorcerer who had forged an even more powerful thunderbolt for him to wield, was the Loki to his Thor. It was only fair that the two gods would unite to begin their own pantheon. Bitturumba was the embodiment of war, Cruz the master of misery and suffering. Together, their intellects and resources combined were far more powerful than they were alone. Bitturumba didn’t mind. He loved his sibling, and knew that the sum was greater than the parts, power growing exponentially from their united effort.

Kartennian was one of Cruz’s gifts to Bitturumba. The Turkish rebel had branched out, bringing about the hardcore Wahabite teachings of radical, extreme Islam to the rest of the world. Bitturumba was familiar enough with the Koran and the Hadritha to walk rings around the Turk in a theological debate if he wanted to. The only thing that the Prophet had accomplished that impressed the African warrior was the sheer terror he’d inflicted on the Middle East, decapitating thousands of enemies, and enjoying the lamentations of their women and children.

“Praise be unto him,” Bitturumba repeated.

Kartennian looked at the brandy remaining in Bitturumba’s glass. “You really should not drink.”

Bitturumba looked down. “I am a warrior, embarking upon a battle that will shake the world. Did not the Prophet allow for true believers to partake of hashish in order to gird their will?”

“But…”

“Did he not?” Bitturumba asked. “And yet, where is your gift to me, the warrior who will bring God’s will to this continent?”

“Alcohol is the devil’s tool,” Kartennian mentioned.

Bitturumba tapped the glass. “Then Satan’s swizzle is pretty damn transparent.”

Kartennian managed a laugh.

“My mind and heart are clear. Satan has placed no words in my mouth,” Bitturumba told him. He wrapped his beefy paw around the glass bottle. “I hold the wick of the devil and control it.”

“Peace be with you,” Kartennian stated with a nod. “I shall speak with our Egyptian brothers.”

Bitturumba dismissed the Turk with a smile. Naturally, Kartennian’s communications would be monitored.

One did not become a god of thunder and war without keeping an eye on even those who’d claimed to be allies. If Kartennian betrayed him, his head would be mailed back to his family with a grenade jammed in the neck hole.

“Praise be unto that, you idiot fanatic.” Bitturumba spit, tossed back another swig of brandy, then planted the glass upside down on the table next to his machete.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

AARON KURTZMAN SAW the flagged communication pop up on his monitor. There was no secret that Unit 777 of the Egyptian military kept a close eye on the Muslim Brotherhood. The elite counterterrorist organization gathered its own intel on the renegade extremists who threatened the cold peace between Egypt and Israel. Stony Man Farm and the Executioner had allied with the highly trained commandos in the past, so tapping their information was hardly an intrusion.

In this instance, Bolan had informed Kurtzman to keep an eye on the rogue Egyptians. If the Thunder Lions were going to seek backup in Alexandria, it was going to come from the Brotherhood. Kurtzman opened the communication socket and took a close look at the conversation captured by Unit 777’s electronic intel.

“Our brothers in the Lions require assistance in Alexandria,” a Turkish-accented voice said. Brognola took the recorded snippet, copied it and fed it into the known voice database of international terrorists for identification. As each voice had its own unique signature and frequency, the match would be a definitive means of finding out who was assisting Bitturumba.

“How much assistance?” a Muslim Brotherhood named Zambron asked.

“As much as possible. The one we dare not name has arrived in Alexandria,” the Turk said.

There was an audible gulp. Kurtzman allowed himself a grin. Even though Mack Bolan, the Executioner, was officially dead, a myth that was supposed to have faded into antiquity, the terrorist world was fully aware that a superpredator stalked the shadowy alleys of the world, hunting down insurgents and criminals. It wasn’t the same as when Bolan was still officially alive, hunting the mafiya in his one-man crusade against organized crime, mainly because various terrorist organizations had different names for the Executioner, but the legend still existed. It was just another tool in the warrior’s arsenal, a means of cowing the thugs.

“I have four score men assembled,” Zambron replied. “Where to?”

“Our hotel,” the Turk stated.

“How many allies can we count on?” Zambron inquired.

“There are twenty left among our soldiers,” the Turk explained. “He has given us a terrible rout.”

“Undoubtedly.” Zambron sighed. “I’ll have them ready. When?”

“We believe he will strike tonight,” the Turk said.

“Count on our assistance,” Zambron promised.

Kurtzman made another copy of the conversation, forwarding it to Bolan, Encizo and James. The three of them would have to change their plan of action, but the Stony Man cyberwizard remembered the Executioner’s order of battle. Drawing out the enemy while making them think he was the victim of their trap was one of Bolan’s most successful tactics.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” came a quick e-mail response from the Executioner.

It was an efficient, almost flippant response to the knowledge that a terrorist army was waiting in the wings to pounce on him.

Kurtzman smiled.

Now he was positive that the Executioner was counting on extra backup for the Thunder Lions, and wasn’t slightly concerned.

Kurtzman felt a pang of guilt for the doomed terrorists who thought they had their prey dead to rights.

CHAPTER FIVE

Alexandria, Egypt

The cliché “forewarned is forearmed” was a vital part of Mack Bolan’s arsenal. Clichés endured because of their veracity. With the Executioner, every bit of knowledge was a tool to be used. Now that he was aware that the Thunder Lions’ compound was a trap, the raid had the potential to double its rewards. Bolan had crossed swords with the Egyptian terrorist organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood before, and the opportunity to strike a blow against their membership was irresistible.

“I’d rather be on the ground backing your play, Striker,” Calvin James said over the hands-free radio.

“Yeah, you’re the best sniper of the three of us,” Rafael Encizo added. “We’re the close-quarters types.”

“Cal’s an excellent long-distance marksman,” Bolan countered. “He’s been Gary’s backup sniper on hundreds of occasions, taking out sentries simultaneously with him. And the both of you are Phoenix’s designated grenadiers. I need you two to be my force multiplication. The Brotherhood will bring everything they can, and the two of you can plant a 40 mm shell into their lap accurately and quickly.”

Bolan couldn’t help the feeling of gratitude that the two Phoenix Force commandos were willing to take his place directly in the line of fire. They stopped their complaints, seeing the wisdom of Bolan’s strategy. James and Encizo were skilled and capable and the Executioner couldn’t have asked for better backup, save the aforementioned Gary Manning, Phoenix Force’s sniper and a long-distance rifleman who rivaled Bolan’s own skills.

“We’ve got your back,” James said. “Put some boot to ass.”

Bolan remained silent. He was in the strike zone and had a sentry in his sights. Not literally, because right now Bolan had only a knife with a black phosphate blade in his hand, and the suppressed MP-5 machine pistol cinched over his shoulder. He was prepared for close-quarters combat, falling into the profile that his prey were told to expect. As long as he was only going against the Thunder Lion militia, James and Encizo were to hold their fire. Their guns were reserved for shattering the spine of the Muslim Brotherhood ambush.

Bolan lunged at the Thunder Lion sentry, his black-bladed Cold Steel Recon Bowie knife driving deep into the guard’s sternum, piercing the abdominal wall and spearing into his heart. The African’s dying cry of pain was strangled and trapped in his throat, cut off by Bolan’s forearm crushing into his windpipe. The kill was over in the space of a heartbeat, completed with no more noise than the rustle of a bird’s wings as it took flight. Bolan hauled the corpse into a set of decorative flower bushes, stowing him out of sight. He took the dead man’s rifle and his bandolier of ammunition to bolster his firepower for the coming battle.

There was a feeling in the air, and a more superstitious man would have attributed the eerie prickling at the back of his neck to some supernatural sense. The Executioner, however, was far more practical and realistic. It wasn’t a psychic awareness that he was being watched, but his subconscious mind picking up sensory data that his higher functions weren’t focused on. Bolan’s danger sense was an acute awareness of subliminal sensory data—a shadow in his peripheral vision, the silence of normally active rodents in their alley, or the whiff of hashish smoke still clinging to a Muslim Brotherhood warrior. Bolan’s subconscious mind processed all of this information with an uncanny ease, and the warrior’s experience and intellect were honed to pick up on these subliminal signals. The result was the Executioner’s almost omniscient understanding of any battlefield he found himself in, able to anticipate his enemy’s action even before they took it.

Forewarned was forearmed, he mentally repeated. That truly was the case for Bolan, and his arsenal of forewarning provided him with the firepower to obliterate twenty-to-one odds. He unslung the MP-5, then rushed to complete the sentry’s patrol path. Catching up to the dead African’s schedule, as observed from the night before, Bolan turned the corner and came face-to-face with a second Thunder Lion guard. Bolan expected the sentry, but the militiaman was thrown off balance by his partner’s replacement. Before the guard could react, Bolan fired a single suppressed round between his eyes, dropping the African in his tracks.

Two down and still eighteen Thunder Lions left to go, thanks to Kurtzman’s satellite reconnaissance of the hotel compound. That wasn’t counting the contingent of Muslim Brotherhood gunmen who’d been called in by Bitturumba. Bolan took the magazines of FAMAS ammo off the second corpse, adding it to his reservoir as he looped the bandolier of 25-round magazines over his neck and shoulder. He approached the back of the hotel compound, closing in on the service entrance. Bolan knew from the previous night’s recon that there were two Thunder Lions on post there, but as many as six could be on hand with a single cry of alarm. The soldier paused long enough to scoop up a rock and then hurled it with all his strength at the wrought-iron gate, raising a loud clang.

The heavy stone had accomplished its task, drawing the attention of one of the militiamen. The sentinel poked his head out around the corner, his face an easy target as he leaned off balance on the gate. Bolan fired a short burst of suppressed SMG fire, bullets tearing through the militiaman’s face. The second guard posted at the back let out a loud cry to alert the rest of the militia troopers as his partner convulsed, then collapsed in death, hanging halfway over the fence.

Everything was going according to Bolan’s plan, and the soldier turned and circled back around the way he’d come. While the Thunder Lions focused their attention on the service entrance, ready to repel the one-man assault, Bolan leaped up and grabbed the top of the eight-foot privacy wall. He powered himself to the top of the barrier and crouched. From his vantage point, he saw that a clot of six Africans were braced at the service entrance. Three of the militiamen were out of breath from racing to join their comrades in defending their post. He heard the scuff of boots in the distance as more of the African gunmen mobilized. Bolan pulled the stock of his MP-5 to his shoulder and triggered it.

Bolan’s nighttime camouflage made him into a barely visible ghost in the Thunder Lions’ peripheral vision, and their attention was directed forward, not to their flanks. The mighty warriors named for lions were more like sitting ducks as heavyweight 9 mm rounds ripped through the flank of braced gunmen, drilling tunnels through vital organs. Two of the riflemen dropped immediately, another staggering as his thighs were shredded by the salvo that had been slowed by the corpses of his partners. As the wounded guard had dropped his weapon, Bolan focused on the ones still standing as they reacted to the sudden deaths and injuries among their number. They whirled to face the Executioner, but he stepped off the privacy wall, dropping eight feet to the ground and landing in crouch. The move had dropped him beneath their focus as the riflemen fired, spearing 5.56 mm bullets through the air that Bolan had occupied a heartbeat earlier. The sudden drop had bought the big American an additional second of confusion among his foes, and he took full advantage of it by hosing down the last three Thunder Lions.

The trio convulsed as bullets punched into their faces and chests, bodies trembling under the onslaught as they tumbled dead to the ground. The injured gunman reached out for his fallen FAMAS rifle. It was a mistake, but not an immediately fatal one. Bolan triggered a burst of 9 mm bullets that forced the man to hastily withdraw his hand.

“You’ll want to bandage that,” Bolan said, gesturing to the man’s bloody thighs.

The gunman looked up at the Executioner, his eyes wide. He glanced to the FAMAS.

“I wouldn’t,” Bolan warned.

The guard lunged anyway, tugging the butt of his rifle to his left shoulder. Bolan was ready for the resulting firestorm, taking one step to the side to avoid the initial trigger pull. The FAMAS was a sturdy, reliable assault rifle, and its bullpup configuration kept the black weapon compact by placing the trigger guard and handle well forward of the firing mechanism. This way, a twenty-inch barrel could be put on a weapon that was only slightly longer than thirty inches, maintaining full power while improving maneuverability. Unfortunately for the African rifleman, the FAMAS was an older generation bullpup, which meant that the ejector port threw blistering-hot empty casings out of a breech right at the face of the shooter if he used it in the wrong hand.

While the FAMAS was great for a right-handed gunman, spitting its shells out over his shoulder, when the rifle was fired from a left-hander’s stance, as the guard tried to now, his head was right in the path of a stream of superheated cartridges. The brass tore at the rifleman’s left eye and cheek, slicing flesh. The guard screamed and dropped his rifle. Blinded and lacerated, the sentry curled up into a ball, harmless and whimpering in agony. Bolan reversed his MP-5 and slammed the steel stock into the side of the wounded man’s head, knocking him out cold.

“Told you,” Bolan said. He tucked the MP-5 behind his back and transferred to the fully loaded FAMAS he’d taken from his first victim. The scuff of boots announced that two more Thunder Lion militiamen were rushing toward his position. As they turned the corner, almost as if they were on a preset schedule, Bolan had his rifle ready for their anticipated approach. The FAMAS snarled two rapid bursts, bullets punching through the militiamen’s chests.

A loud crack filled the air, the passage of a supersonic bullet across several rooftops. Waves of air displaced by the high-caliber sniper round bounced off nearby surfaces. It was James’s warning to Bolan that the Muslim Brotherhood was making its move. James’s first shot from his Israeli M-89-SR, a silenced 7.62 mm sniper rifle, had the power to obliterate a human skull in a fountain of bone fragments and vaporized brain tissue, even at five hundred yards. There were cries of dismay as Egyptian terrorists watched their friend’s head explode. The semiauto rifle had launched two more rounds in the time it took for the first bullet to reach the renegade Egyptian. Multiple shouts of alarm, warnings against a sniper attack, were suddenly cut off as James’s subsequent shots struck their targets.

Thumps filled the air as 40 mm grenades landed two hundred yards from the wall. Bolan knew full well that Encizo’s grenade launcher had a 350-meter maximum effective range, so he could guess that the stocky Cuban was firing on Muslim Brotherhood forces who were staging closer to their sniper’s roost. Encizo’s salvo of grenades spit up columns of smoke and debris that Bolan could see over the service-entrance gate, the first shot landing in a street. Bolan also caught a glimpse of a rooftop erupting, bodies backlit by an explosion, the length of a mangled machine gun twisting in front of the blossoming fireball.

The Brotherhood had its own sniper roosts spread throughout the surrounding rooftops, but the Cuban disrupted them with 40 mm packets of steel and fire. He had a second M-89-SR to back up James, but for now he was relying on the effective Russian RG-6 revolver-style grenade launcher to pour devastation on the heads of the carefully laid ambush.

“Enemy force engaged,” Encizo announced over Bolan’s earpiece. “I have movement heading for the wall you just scaled. No clean shot. Be advised.”

“On it,” the Executioner replied. He grabbed a second FAMAS rifle in his off hand and tucked himself behind a low planter wall filled with decorative ferns. As the wall itself was made of thick stone and filled with densely packed dirt, it shielded the Executioner as the Brotherhood blew open the wall with a pair of RPG-7 rocket grenades. Exploding masonry bounced all around Bolan as he braced himself against the dynamic entry. He fired the FAMAS in his left hand as if it were a pistol, keeping the ejector port well away from his face to avoid an injury similar to the one suffered by the unconscious African lying next to him. He emptied the French rifle’s 25-round magazine through the breach, eliciting howls of agony. The thump of two corpses sprawling across the bottom of the blasted hole in the wall let the Executioner know that his suppressive fire was more effective than he’d counted on.

In response to Bolan’s salvo, the Muslim Brotherhood cut loose with their AKs. Wild autofire slashed through the night, proving ineffective in dislodging the Executioner from behind the low wall. The sheer volume of autofire was deafening, informing Bolan that his opposition had been thrown off its game.

Bolan’s next trick was going to put it into sudden death. He reached into his thigh pouch and pulled a fragmentation grenade. Knowing the distance and the angle he needed to make the shot, he sailed the orb through the hole in the wall, right into the knot of Brotherhood gunmen on the outside the hotel compound. Six-and-a-half ounces of plastic explosive detonated, hurling splinters of razor-sharp wire at high velocity through vulnerable flesh, inducing crippling lacerations that tore apart skin, muscles and internal organs. It was a brutal, devastating maneuver, as likely to produce painful, slowly lethal injuries as it was instant death. The Executioner couldn’t spare time or mercy for the mangled and mortally wounded. He was outnumbered and living in the space between the hammer and the anvil.

The Executioner whirled and drove deeper into the Thunder Lions’ headquarters, drawing the Brotherhood forces after him into the compound. This night was going to be a message heard across the underworld of radical fanatics.

The message was that extremist groups had someone to fear.

“MACK’S INSIDE,” Rafael Encizo told Calvin James as the Phoenix Force medic triggered his silenced sniper rifle.

James’s shot hit another of the Brotherhood’s fighters who had noticed their position. The Egyptian was on the parapet of a roof and was in the process of turning his RPK light machine gun when James punched a 7.62 mm NATO bullet through the bridge of the gunner’s nose.

“The troops are paying too much attention to us now to do more than spot for him,” James said. “All the rooftops are crowded with snipers and machine-gun nests. This is almost as bad as when the Russians came after us at Gary’s place in Montana.”

“There were twice as many of those guys,” Encizo reminded his friend. “And we were all deployed in one general fortification because we only had to defend one approach. This time, we’ve got them surrounded.”

James glanced over his shoulder, then swung his rifle around, popping a suppressed bullet into the chest of another rooftop gunman. “You think?”

“Well, we’re fighting them on two fronts, instead of just one,” Encizo corrected. He punctuated his argument by triggering his reloaded RG-6, lancing a clot of armed Egyptians coming up the street with a 40 mm fragmentation shell. Bodies scattered as the round detonated, hurling heads and limbs from torn torsos in a grisly testimony to the launcher’s fearsome power. Encizo scanned for more targets, then caught the sound of boots and bodies rattling the ladder of the fire escape that had brought them to the roof. “Company’s coming.”

The Cuban set down the RG-6 next to James, trading it in for his Heckler & Koch USP. The 9 mm pistol didn’t have quite the same devastating ability as the other weapons, but Encizo wanted to err on the side of weapon retention. It was easier to hang on to a handgun in close-quarters combat than it was to retain a long arm, which provided an attacker with more leverage. An angry face topped the ladder and Encizo aimed and fired in a split second. Two rounds from the 9 mm H & K struck the Brotherhood assailant within an inch of each other, one coring an eye socket into a smear of punctured cornea, the other cracking against the forehead, the wide mouth of his hollowpoint round snagging the bone and breaking it, but not penetrating to the brain beneath. The bullet through the eye, however, took care of the right hemisphere of the Egyptian’s brain, and his head snapped back, fountaining gore.

Encizo rushed to the top of the ladder now that the Brotherhood attacker’s brainless corpse surrendered to the embrace of gravity, pulling it out of the way between him and the rest of the climbers. Egyptian faces looked up in a mixture of anger, fear, determination and resignation. Encizo shouted an order in Arabic. “Turn back or die!”

A handgun barked from lower on the ladder, but the climber had to shoot one-handed and off balance on a rung while aiming around a higher climber. The topmost Egyptian hugged the side of the ladder, giving Encizo a clean shot at the Muslim Brotherhood aggressor. The Phoenix Force commando took it, drilling the feisty terrorist through the top of his head. The 9 mm slug fractured the bone at the top of the Egyptian’s head, cracking down between his right and left lobes to peel him off the ladder and dump his lifeless corpse to the floor of the alley, thirty feet below.

Three of the other Egyptians had slid back down the fire escape as fast as they could, realizing that they were sitting ducks for the Cuban warrior on the roof. A rifleman who was at the base of the ladder opened up, trying to tag Encizo at the edge of the roof. The Brotherhood trooper who had elected to sit out the fight on a ladder rung screamed in pain as two AK-47 bullets slashed through his right leg.

Encizo pulled a fragmentation grenade from his harness and dumped it over the side. Screams of dismay filled the alley as the terrorists recognized the egg-shaped envelope of death spiraling down into their midst. The rifle salvo ended as the terrorist chose to run, rather than be blown to smithereens. It was too late. Thunder boomed, grounded gunmen smashed into greasy pulps of crushed flesh and bone, destroyed by the high-powered blast. Encizo reached down to the injured Egyptian and took his hand. There was a moment of doubt on the Brotherhood prisoner’s part, but he let the Cuban haul him onto the roof. Encizo’s powerful upper body strength made lifting the slender Arab as easy as hoisting a child.

“They shot me,” the man whimpered in broken English, voice trembling from a mixture of pain and betrayal.

“Cal, we have wounded!” Encizo called out.

“Busy!” James responded. The Phoenix Force medic had transferred to his Beretta and was in the process of stitching a line of 9 mm rounds into a gunman on the next rooftop over. The M-89-SR lay at James’s feet, action locked open, the magazine well empty.

Encizo caught movement on another rooftop and whirled, spotting three gunmen rushing up in James’s blind spot. He snapped up the USP and let them have it with a salvo of rapid-fire rounds, drilling two of the terrorists when he heard the crack of another pistol firing. The Egyptian he’d rescued emptied half the magazine of his 9 mm Helwan into the third attacker.

“They shot me,” the ex-Brotherhood gunman growled, having shaken off his moment of shock. Betrayal still burned in his eyes as he reloaded the Egyptian Beretta copy. “I don’t owe those traitorous dogs more than goat shit and death.”

Encizo gave him a friendly smirk. “That’s the spirit.”

He went back to searching for more rooftop enemies, but the Phoenix Force pair and their newfound ally had depleted their ranks.

“Clear for now,” James said, rushing over with his first-aid kit. “I’ll look after our buddy’s leg. Rafe…”

“I’ve got Striker’s back,” Encizo replied. He scooped up the sniper rifle and fed it a fresh magazine. “Take good care of him. Hearts and minds.”

“You know it,” James responded.

The Cuban warrior nestled behind the sniper rifle and set to work thinning out the crowd of Muslim Brotherhood soldiers who were trying to rush the rear of the hotel’s compound. There was still work to be done.

CHAPTER SIX

Captain Fial Aflaq had been prepared for the coming of the nameless crusader for a full day. It was common knowledge among even African militiamen trained by the radical Islamic clerics of the Middle East that there was an American commando who stalked those who fought for the cause of converting the world to their ways. This one man, almost mythic in strength, prowess and the sheer number of kills attributed to him, was unknown, other than for the effects he had left behind him.

Aflaq jolted as he heard the rattle of a lone FAMAS preceding the rolling thunder of a multigrenade barrage. Shock gripped the Thunder Lion leader.

“Only ten men are reporting in,” Lieutenant Anid told him, looking up from his radio.

Ten men? Aflaq’s stomach churned as he processed his nephew’s words. He realized that his fighting force had been halved in a matter of seconds. He was about to give the evacuation order when a powerful concussion shook the small hotel. Aflaq looked out the window and saw a column of smoke billowing upward from a corner of the compound. Rifles exchanged blistering salvos through the breach in the hotel grounds before the firefight was terminated by the bellow of a hand grenade.

“He’s in here with us,” Aflaq said, stunned.

Anid’s eyes were wide with horror. “He told us not to side with Bitturumba any longer.”

Aflaq’s lips drew into a tight, bloodless scar across his face. “Run.”

“But, Uncle—” Anid began to protest.

Aflaq gave the young man a hard push. “I ordered you to run!”

Anid nodded and spun, racing into the hallway. Even as Aflaq’s door swung open, the Thunder Lion officer heard the blazing chatter of French FAMAS rifles, snarling in a vicious two-way cross fire. Anid whirled in the doorway, his shoulder blown into a bloody mess by a snap shot from down the hallway. Aflaq leaped across the office and pulled his nephew back to cover behind his desk. Was it too late for his sister’s son?

“Fall back! Fall back!” Aflaq bellowed into Anid’s walkie-talkie. “It’s not worth dying for! Retreat!”

“Listen to your boss,” Bolan’s chilling voice agreed over the radio. The Executioner’s Arabic was thickly accented, and by no means fluent, but where his words were slightly halting, the tone of voice conveyed a message easily understood. “The Thunder Lions will be extinct inside of a week. Why join Bitturumba all the way to the bitter end?”

“God,” Aflaq prayed.

“No,” Bolan responded, returning to his native English. “Not God. Just your judgment, Captain. It takes a lot more to earn my forgiveness.”

Aflaq looked down to Anid, who was clutching his wounded limb. “I have a wounded boy in here with me. Spare him. I ordered him to stay with me here.”

Bolan strode into view, his tall frame filling the doorway. Clad all in black, bristling with weaponry, the grim figure of the Executioner turned Aflaq’s bowels to ice water with his fearsome visage.

“No!” Anid shouted, almost deliriously. Somehow the eager youngster had twisted his left hand around and had pried his South African Vektor pistol from his hip holster. The sleek black Beretta clone filled his fist as Anid rose to confront the ferocious wraith looking across the desk.

Aflaq lunged and crashed into the wounded lad, knocking the pistol from his grasp. Its metal frame clattered on the floor of the office.

Bolan glared at Aflaq, who was certain that he had doomed himself.

Then the wraith spoke. “Make sure the kid behaves.”

Aflaq kicked the weapon across the floor to Bolan. “I will.”

“Good call.” Bolan glanced out into the hallway. “Keep behind the desk. It’s going to get a hell of a lot hairier in here.”

Bolan fired three swift bursts down the hall, tagging targets in the distance. Satisfied that he’d bought himself a few moments, the Executioner reached into his battle harness, opening a pouch and taking out a small packet. He turned and lobbed it to Aflaq. “It’s something to make the blood clot. Pour it on his shoulder wound, and it’ll stop the bleeding.”

Aflaq tore open the packet. “Peace be unto you, soldier.”

Bolan was taken aback by the militiaman’s gratitude. “Let’s hope not too soon. I’ve got some aggression to extinguish.”

The Executioner turned and fired another long burst from his FAMAS, targeting enemy gunmen making another approach to the office. He disappeared from Aflaq’s sight, and the former militiaman did his best to be a healer.

THE THUNDER LION RESISTANCE had been shattered to pieces in almost record time. It didn’t hurt that Bolan had destroyed half their fighting force in the space of ten seconds, but the conversion of Fial Aflaq and his nephew was an unexpected bonus. Now the Executioner was free to focus on the Muslim Brotherhood contingent who had foolishly dealt themselves into this battle. He keyed his throat mike. “Pushed back a fire team from the Egyptians. Any other advancement on my position?”

“Movement around the lobby at the front of the hotel,” Encizo explained. “I don’t have the range on my launcher and no straight shot with my rifle. Can’t help you with them.”

“Approximate numbers?” Bolan inquired.

“Eight to ten,” Encizo answered. “I’m holding off another group, but they’re retreating to try another approach.”

“Let them through and just concentrate on your side of the hotel. They’ve only got one path to get to me, and if I know my back’s covered, I can deal with their pressure,” Bolan returned. “I’ve got my battlefield set up, and they’re just being funneled into a slaughterhouse.”

“Cattle don’t usually bring AK-47s and RPGs into a slaughterhouse, Striker,” James admonished.

Bolan plucked a fragmentation grenade from his thigh-mounted pouch and bowled the minibomb down the hallway heading toward the lobby. As the fragger’s momentum petered out, the tip of the first Muslim Brotherhood assault team lurched into view. Bolan could see three sets of eyes widen with horror as they looked down at the smooth-skinned green egg of damnation that skittered toward them at head level as they rushed to the top of the steps. A moment later the grenade detonated and the three terrorists disappeared behind a cloud of flame, smoke and dust, their death cries swallowed in the throaty roar of the explosion.

The wall of fragmented razor wire wrapped around the grenade’s explosive core didn’t have the velocity to reach back to the Executioner as he crouched in a doorway twenty-five yards from ground zero. On the other hand, the renegade Egyptians were well within the ten-meter total kill radius of the rocketing, flesh-shredding shrapnel. Meat and skin were pulled from the Brotherhood’s skulls, ripped away as the high-powered sheet of concussive energy struck them like an invisible guillotine blade, shearing through neck bones and ripping the dead men’s heads clean off.

Killed twice over, the mutilated masses of flesh toppled backward onto their overpressure-stunned compatriots, throwing the Brotherhood’s charge even further off balance. Bolan knew he’d only given himself a small window of opportunity against the Egyptian militia, so he charged to the end of the hallway as fast as he could. He fed the FAMAS a full kill-load while he was still on the run, charging a live round into the chamber as he put on the brakes. Bolan’s momentum glided him across the smooth tile floor as if he were ice skating, slowing to a halt at the grenade-crumpled top step. He looked down the stairway and into the dazed opposition as they struggled to free themselves from beneath the tangled limbs of their three decapitated comrades.

Bolan opened fire with the FAMAS. At a range of less than three yards, the French rifle’s full-powered 5.56 mm NATO rounds, launched from a full-length twenty-inch barrel, had no difficulty in tunneling through the mass of jumbled bodies between him and the still stunned enemy. Searing along at 3200 feet per second, the bullets shredded through lifeless meat and bone as if they were made of tissue paper. Ugly craters dented the torsos of the terrorists jammed beneath the deadweight of their friends.

It was a brutal, merciless slaughter, one in which his opposition had very little chance, but Bolan knew that if he had been a mere two seconds slower, the Egyptian renegades would have pulled themselves free from their jumbled mass, grabbed their weapons and launched a hail of lead against him. The difference between two different one-way slaughters was the breadth of three or four heartbeats, and the Executioner’s ruthless efficiency had kept him alive through thousands of such encounters.

“More movement on your side, Striker,” James warned over the radio. “Rafe was right, that group swung back to try a different approach.”

Bolan saw the mob of Muslim Brotherhood gunmen approach the lobby door. His FAMAS had been locked empty, and he let it drop on its sling, transferring to the mighty .44 Magnum Desert Eagle on his hip. When the Egyptians made their move, the need for his stealthy 9 mm weapons had ended, and the suppressed weapons didn’t have the same reach and power as the Israeli-designed hand cannon. In a lightning quick movement, he leveled the .44 at the lobby doors, waiting for the right moment.

The first Egyptian through the door stopped cold, as if he’d struck an invisible brick wall, 240-grains of lead smashing violently through his forehead. The heavyweight slug punched out of the back of the dead man’s neck and speared into a gunman behind him, the poor guy screaming as the deformed hollowpoint round lanced into his groin, shredding through muscle to cut his femoral artery. It was a two-for-one shot that Bolan sometimes encountered when firing high-powered weapons at his enemies. It was the kind of bonus that Bolan didn’t want to count on in the field. A jet of arterial blood hosed onto the other gunmen beside him, jolting them in surprise. The Executioner adjusted his aim and triggered two more rounds into the third and fourth terrorists who were trying to charge through the entrance.

The doorway suddenly became an unnavigable mass of bodies as four corpses blocked the way, bodies piled high enough to force anyone behind them to climb up and over the dead. This gave Bolan an opening to draw another fragmentation grenade. He popped the cotter pin and launched the munition past the pile of lifeless Egyptians. It bounced off a corpse’s back and landed at the feet of a clutch of stacked up Brotherhood gunmen. The terrorists weren’t able to go forward because the bodies of their Magnum-mutilated comrades were too high to easily step over, and the men at the back of the group were shoving too hard against them to allow them to haul the bodies out of the way. When the jammed up gunmen saw the lethal grenade arc into their midst, panic seized the group and they tried to force their way back against the crush of gunmen at the rear of their group. The riflemen at the back were unaware of the impending detonation at their feet until it came through.

The M-26 fragmentation grenade disintegrated, unleashing an umbrella of cutting force through the legs of the snarled terrorists, carving through thighs, knees and shins with enough force to rip them from their owners’ bodies. Shrapnel sliced into vulnerable bellies, ripping open abdominal muscles and crushing intestines and lower spines. Bolan took the opportunity to slam a fresh magazine into the FAMAS and clean up the horrific mess caused by his grenade, firing head shots to end the suffering of those who still lived despite their brutal grenade-mauling.

“The Brotherhood’s in full retreat,” Encizo announced. “Ambush broken.”

“Watch yourselves,” Bolan warned. “The Brotherhood might not be too happy with you guys and take a parting shot.”

“They tried to get us before,” James stated. “They’d come up on the roof with us, but we put them back down.”

“Let the survivors run,” Bolan said. “The Brotherhood knows who they came after, that’s why we had nearly a hundred of them show up to fight. By now, they’ve learned their lesson, in spades.”

“The faster these creeps learn that they’re no longer the top of the food chain, the better,” James stated. “These screwheads need to be more scared.”

“Trust me, I’m getting through to some of them,” Bolan replied. “At least one of the Thunder Lions had a significant change of heart.”

“We had a convert up here, too,” James answered. “He won’t be walking too well, but he’s no longer interested in helping out violent insurgency anymore.”

“Wish the ratio of slaughtered to converted was the other way around,” Bolan said. “More good people are always welcome in the War Everlasting.”

“Better than none redeemed,” Encizo interjected.

Bolan returned to Aflaq’s office. The former militiaman looked up from his first-aid efforts on his nephew.

“How’s the shoulder?” Bolan asked.

“You’ll never cow a true warrior for the Prophet,” Anid snarled.

“Is that so?” Bolan returned. “The Egyptians abandoned close to fifty of their dead brothers after we were done with them. Let’s call it sixty true warriors for the Prophet, bleeding their guts out, and forty or so survivors running away through the shadows, all defeated by three men. Three men including me.”

Anid swallowed.

“My quarrel’s not with the followers of Islam, only the jackals who use the Koran’s teachings as a license to engage in rape and murder,” Bolan said. “Tell me how gang-raping children and mass executions bring enlightenment to the people?”

Anid remained silent, his eyes cast down at the wound in his shoulder.

“Search your soul. Who is the truly merciful one here? Who destroyed an overwhelmingly superior force and crushed the fight out of it, then stopped long enough to assist in the healing of your wounds?” Bolan asked.

“You did,” Anid admitted.

“Your uncle saved your life,” Bolan told him. “Pick the right path in your beliefs and actions. The one that the Thunder Lions have chosen only brings them defeat and suffering at my hands.”

Aflaq gave his nephew’s hand a squeeze.

“I’m not telling you two to turn your back on God. I’m telling you that there are ways to be true to your faith that don’t involve murder and pain. As your uncle said, peace be unto you.”

Anid looked up and met Bolan’s eyes.

“Understand?” Bolan asked.

“I do,” Anid answered.

Bolan nodded and left the office.

Cartegena, Spain

SHAVED BALD, YET STILL wearing a thick beard, Igor Sharpova looked uncomfortable as he sidled up to Alonzo Cruz’s table at the café. The midsummer sun raised a sheen of sweat on the Russian’s forehead as Cruz watched the man’s eyes flick nervously behind his sunglasses. The bulk of Sharpova’s chest was further thickened by a concealed bulletproof vest.

“I ordered some iced tea for you, amigo,” Cruz said.

Sharpova sat heavily. He snatched up a napkin and mopped at his wet brow. “I’m used to cooler climes. You do realize that this city comes under considerable scrutiny from NATO, the CIA and Interpol, do you not?”

Cruz chuckled. “Which is why we are talking here. This is a major port, the largest in Spain. Intrigue drips from the walls. Besides, you’re a Russian. Yesterday’s news. It’s the Islamicists that the West fears.”

Sharpova sighed. “So we’re secure.”

“Not if you keep acting so antsy and suspicious,” Cruz replied. “Relax.”

“What happened to the shipment?” Sharpova asked.

“What’s the worst possible thing that could happen to you, Igor?” Cruz responded.

Sharpova grimaced. “You mean that we’ve been found out.”

“I mean that your bogeyman has emerged from the shadows. And he’s become very interested in the Darfur tests,” Cruz told him. “Does he know what truly is going on? Unlikely.”

Sharpova frowned, his jowls hanging, which increased his resemblance to a bulldog. “You don’t understand. This man has derailed countless plots of ours around the world. He is the living doom to any who dare oppose him.”

“Poetic,” Cruz commented with a nod. “This time, however, we have knowledge on our side.”

“Knowledge. Ninjas. Nerve gas. Nanotechnology. Nuclear weapons,” Sharpova rattled off. “Nothing we’ve ever employed has been above his ability. You call him a man, but he is not human. No mortal could be so unerring and infallible.”

Cruz smiled. “Yes, he is a terrifying opponent. Don’t forget, you’re allied with Thor and me.”

“And the two of you actually possess the powers of gods?” Sharpova asked.

“Yes, we do,” Cruz answered. He spread his hands, his fingertips tracing a globe in the air. “The two of us can halve the population of an entire continent at a whim. A continent full of teeming resources that would be lost or destroyed by any other means. Diamonds, oil, precious metals and nuclear materials litter Africa. Such a prize is beyond anyone’s dreams.”

Sharpova swallowed.

“You look very tense for a man who can tame the wild renegades of the Commonwealth of Independent States and open up a whole new frontier of limitless resources,” Cruz noted.

Sharpova took another sip, shifting to get comfortable in his body armor. “But the devil is stalking us like a hungry lion.”

“My brother knows how to deal with lions, and is himself a devil, my friend,” Cruz said.

Sharpova grimaced. “I have some men on hand. Highly trained commandos. A small army at your beckoning if you need them.”

Cruz nodded, acknowledging the Russian’s generosity. “And I have my own highly trained security force. Throw in Thor’s militia and the allies coming to him as we speak, and we can sweep away any minor irritant.”

“Do not see this devil as one man, Alonzo. He is a force of nature, and he is simply not to be underestimated. We have done that in the past, and suffered greatly for it,” Sharpova warned.

Cruz sighed. “I’m not stupid, Igor.”

Sharpova looked around nervously. “Others have said that. They aren’t around anymore. Keep that in mind.”

The Russian excused himself and left.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

HAL BROGNOLA LOOKED at the data the Executioner and his two Phoenix Force allies had gathered over the course of their operations in Alexandria. The men were sitting in front of their laptop in a video conference, grim-faced as they were displayed, twice normal size, on the video monitor wall. Brognola could tell why the trio was unhappy. The implications of their discovery left the big Fed’s gut knotted as he saw the potential for tragedy. Mixing black-market military weaponry, a murderous plague and the ethnically charged slaughter occurring in the Darfur region meant a death toll that could easily top six figures in the space of a few days. The presence of Bitturumba’s Thunder Lion militia was a disturbing note.

“Weaponized Ebola in the hands of a violent, radical Islamic group,” Brognola said out loud, looking at Barbara Price, the Stony Man mission controller. She’d been infected with an artificially manufactured version of Ebola and would have died had not a treatment been developed by the CDC’s researchers thanks to intel gathered by Kurtzman and his cyberteam.

Price cleared her throat, remembering her near brush with death. “We need to see if this current variant is vulnerable to the same treatments that helped me out. Regular Ebola Zaire has proved resistant to any vaccines or countermeasures developed off the designer variant utilized on me. This version might be based off the same DNA blueprint, or even have been recovered from a stockpile used by the Imam.”

“I knew something wasn’t kosher when the Russians loaded up an arms shipment for Alexandria,” Bolan said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have called in Cal and Rafe. This situation is about as bad as it gets. If the Thunder Lions succeed at their goals in the Sudan, we can see a lot more of viral outbreaks like the one at the refugee camp.”

“We’d be talking global nightmares,” Price agreed. “The only saving graces are that you have almost a one-in-two chance of surviving infection, and once the virus has been dispersed and settles, it goes inert and is no longer infectious. It’s only contagious in human respiration, and it either kills or fades out after twenty-four hours. Those who aren’t killed aren’t infectious, but they look like they’ve been run over by a truck.”

“It’s no longer infectious, or just dormant?” Bolan asked. “Who knows how long this brand of virus can remain valid in soil or groundwater.”

“So far, the WHO hasn’t found any residual virus in soil samples. The microbe breaks down quickly. So far, we don’t have a viable, living virus to test anything against,” Price noted.

“We’ll head in,” Bolan announced. “Our USAMRIID backgrounds are already with the World Health Organization, right? Cal can lend us credibility as a medical emergency investigation team.”

Brognola bristled. “You’ll be right at ground zero for an epidemic.”

“Trouble is, Hal, we have what looks like an artificially manufactured virus out in the Sudan. If it’s manufactured, then that means there is a strong possibility that there will be a form of treatment or a vaccine to grant immunity. Even if there isn’t, we can intercept the means of dispersal and destroy them before they claim any more victims,” Bolan countered. “We’ve encountered designer diseases enough times in the past, and the scientists who bred them leave a back door to treatment, if only for their own personal safety. The fabricators of these diseases aren’t suicidal, no matter who they give this particular loaded gun to.”

“Some things are just plain incurable,” Brognola mentioned. “Remember the incident in Utah?”

“I do,” Bolan answered. “But what should we do in that case? I’m not going to hide my head in the sand and hope the disease goes away. I’m going in, and if I can’t help locate a cure, then I’ll at least bring down every member of Bitturumba’s murderous militia. However, I am going to make sure that I can slam the lid on this box before any more demons escape. It’s a few countries over, and Darfur has been on my to-do list for too damn long.”

“Good luck, Striker,” Brognola said. “The WHO has your package and they’re vetting you. Bear’s set it up, as always. You’ll be bought hook, line and sinker unless you start acting like the professional ass-kicker you are.”

“I hope we’re not there long enough for them to look at us that closely,” Bolan replied. “But once we get there, I have a feeling that we’ll have the time to attract more attention than the Thunder Lions and their disease.”

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