Don Pendleton - The Libya Connection

That was the last time Mack Bolan had been with Big Eve. He remembered it now with vivid, aching clarity.

At the time, Bolan had just completed shaking up the Nashville operation of Nick Copa as part of the Executioner's war against the Mafia.

At the windup of that Music City action, Hal Brognola had approached Bolan with an incredible offer: Presidential pardon, full amnesty for past illegalities, a new identity and a chair on the National Security Council... if Mack Bolan would redirect his capabilities toward a newly defined cause.

Bolan and Evita Aguilar had already made arrangements for a rendezvous back then, a plan for some R & R together at the close of Bolan's Tennessee Smash, since both he and Eve were between missions.

The secluded cabin, which had been theirs for a day and a night, had commanded a view of a breathtaking pine valley. This was Davy Crockett country. Old Andy Jackson, too. Hero country, yeah. The backbone of the American spirit, set amid some of the most spectacular natural beauty east of the Mississippi.

For much too short a time, it had seemed as if that paradise had belonged to two soldiers named Mack Bolan and Eve Aguilar.

They had pleasured themselves with each other sexually, sure, and with each other's intellect. But every bit as important was the sense of shared space that they had experienced, even while allowing each other their separate, personal thoughts during their brief time together.

Eve obviously had things on her mind as much as Bolan did. They had planned on spending more than a scant twenty-four hours together. But now Brognola was waiting for Bolan's response, and the plans had to be alerted.

During those twenty-four hours in their Smoky Mountain paradise, Bolan and Eve had separated for some five hours.

Bolan hiked to a secluded cove for some solitary roaming and thinking. When he returned to their cabin near dusk, he had found Eve sitting on a rock formation overlooking the lake.

She was dressed in light blue sweater and slacks, her midnight-black hair ruffled by the pine-scented breeze. She looked stunning.

I walked up to her and though I could tell she heard me approach, she did not turn from gazing out over the expanse of water that was silver with the reflection of the setting sun.

' 'It's beautiful,'' I said.

She nodded gently.

"Si. Very beautiful."

At the last word, a tear leaked from the lady's eye and fell down her cheek.

I sat on the rock beside her. She leaned into me and my arm went around her. To this day I can still feel the natural warmth of her.

I told her, quietly and gently, "Sometimes it's tougher pulling back and getting way from what we do, than it is to live the lives we are committed to..."

She nodded, straightened and brushed away the tear. But she did not leave my side.

"I am sorry, my dear. Sometimes I feel things too much."

"That's what these times are for, Eve — meditating, trying to make some sense out of it all."

"If that can bring the mind to a better place, yes," she said. "You a re very good for me, my warrior. "

"We're good for each other," I grinned at her "I'm going inside to build a fire."

She arose with me. We walked back to the rental cabin, along a winding trail that climbed from the water, strolling hand-in-hand like first lovers.

It had been that pure.

"Most people can never reach out and touch what is here like you can," she said. "But you have these matters that have been troubling your mind?" Her golden Latin countenance beamed with all the sexuality and good humor of her race: ' I see that my big norteamericano is no longer plagued by thoughtful silence. Have your own troubles resolved themselves?"

That was Eve, yeah.

Always caring.

"I'm going to accept a deal that's been offered," I told her. Then we went into the cabin and made love.

An evening to remember, yeah.

A woman Bolan could never forget.

He had decided that accepting Hal Brognola's offer was not a shifting of priorities, merely a broadening of the Executioner's scope.

Mack Bolan became John Phoenix and the Executioner's new world war against fanaticism was born.

Since that time, and the formation of the Stony Man Farm operation, the missions handed over by Hal Brognola had come hot and heavy. There had thus far been sixteen assignments for Colonel Phoenix and company, including the fledgling Phoenix Force.

But yeah, Mack Bolan still remembered that last time with Eve Aguilar, with clarity and yearning.

April Rose had then entered Bolan's life and Bolan never did have the opportunity to discuss April with Eve.

Evita dropped out of sight following the Smoky Mountain rendezvous, probably into the work for her government that had eventually taken, her into Leonard Jericho's unholy operation.

At the time, Bolan had not been overly concerned. It was her job. Each of them had many times dropped out of sight from the world for months on end.

Mack Bolan reached the ridge of a dark dune that overlooked a downhill slope toward Aujila oasis and the base under the star-studded Libyan night.

Eve was there. It figured. He was sure. Big Eve, yeah.

Bolan had been calling her that since they first met because Evita Aguilar reminded him of the very first Eve. Eve had eaten of the apple of truth and become banished forever from the fairyland Garden of Eden of hoped-for "normalcy." During that transformation, Evita Aguilar had evolved into the only kind of woman that Mack Bolan could ever love. Like April, she understood that gentle did not mean soft; that hard did not mean bad.

And now... they had her.

Jericho and Santos the Butcher.

Inside the base that now stretched out before him.

Activity at the base was more distinct. But Bolan's view was blocked by towering oasis palm trees that thickly surrounded much of the installation.

He would need a better look.

Bolan was splayed out flat, elbows anchored in the hard desert earth, steadying his vision through the Starlight spotting scope.

A bitter night wind cut in from the north. Sand hissed along the desert floor, playing with the strands of his hair, stinging his face like thousands, of pinpricks.

He was scouting the terrain with a slow panning motion. The Aujila oasis, and the Libyan army base that occupied most of its acreage, were clearly defined in the Starlight's greenish glow.

He advanced on a zigzag course. When he had followed the sloping descent of the terrain to a point three hundred yards north of the base perimeter, he flattened himself to the ground again and commenced a more detailed inspection of the installation and its environs.

From Bolan's position, the land leveled off for two hundred yards of rocky flats before the shadows of shrubs sprouted haphazardly for another thirty yards, when denser desert vegetation began thickening.

An advancing force of any size would have been detected. But one man, of Mack Bolan's capabilities, could attempt far more.

Generally, an oasis in this part of the Sahara would host quite a degree of activity catering to the nomadic Bedouin tribes who roam the land, or the occasional intrepid traveler who might stop to rest.

Aujila oasis was deserted of any human habitation except for the outpost. To the southwest of the installation stood the abandoned huddle of a douar, a native village of about seven mechtas, the mudwalled Arab houses, centered around a well beneath a cluster of shaggy, plump-topped date palms. The previous citizens had most likely been evacuated by government troops when the base was under construction.