Don Pendleton: Blood Sport

This book is dedicated to the eleven Olympic athletes killed at Munich airport on September 5, 1972, by cowardly fanatics. We must not forget.

Joseph Romano — Weight lifter

David Berger — Weight lifter

Zeev Friedmann — Weight lifter

Yacov Springer — Weight lifting referee

Mark Slavin — Wrestler

Eliezer Halfin — Wrestler

Moshe Weinberg — Wrestling coach

Yosef Gutfreund — Wrestling referee

Andre Spitzer — Fencing coach

Amitzur Shapira — Track coach

Kehat Schorr — Marksman coach

For sure, the world had changed beneath Mack Bolan's feet. He had been born to a triumphal world, reared in a frightened one, matured in a confused one, plied his manhood in a threatened one. What was next? A dead world? An enslaved one? Or a world again triumphant and reaching once more for the stars? Mack Bolan was no prophet, nor was he priest or politician.

He could not preordain a world of justice, freedom and abundance for all-and he was not sure that he would if he could. Bolan was a soldier, with a soldier's understanding of moving, forces. He knew that the planet earth had not been designed with Heaven in mind. It was a place for challenge and growth, a place where a force called Life raised awareness toward the stars and dreamed of rest, perhaps only because there is no "rest" in life, nor obviously had it ever been intended.

Things changed, sure. It had to be. Life was a process, not a thing in and of itself, but a force moving inexorably along a pattern of continuous action.

Process means change, yes, but change does not necessarily mean growth; it may also mean decay... or annihilation. This was Bolan's understanding and also a large part of his motivation. He lived now in a threatened world, a world almost literally torn apart by blind forces comstruggling violently toward a new order, a new stage for its actors, a new definition of "good." There were currents and crosscurrents in that struggle, tidal pools and eddies, also "rock and shoals," comz the navy called it, and Bolan knew the dangers were very real for this threatened world. He did not deal in personalities, in conventional moralities, in political nuances of right and wrong. This soldier dealt with a world in trouble, and it would not be a severe overstatement to say that he worked from a cosmic viewpoint. Some activities he perceived as beneficial, others as detrimental, to mankind as a whole. This remarkable warrior was not anti any person, group, cause or movement. He was pro World, and sought only to keep its changes forever positive and constructive, forever moving toward growth and away from decay and/or annihilation. It was, he knew, a struggle of cosmic dimensions.

One of the more troubling aspects for Bolan lay in the realization that some of those who would face him as antagonists would be as selflessly motivated by the same concerns that moved him, but with different goals in mind. Bolan had always respected the true soldier who fights for his idea of right, "enemy" or not. He took no joy from the death of such men. But he also did not shrink from the call of his duty as he perceived it. He could respect and still kill the holy warrior of whatever persuasion who sought to dominate the world as a means of saving it. He did not and could not, however, find any respect in his warrior's heart for those who indiscriminately killed and maimed innocents and terrorized populations in the name of their "holy" cause.

The cause is defamed and the war debased when children are murdered as deliberate pawns for power, and Bolan has no stomach for those who proxied their battles onto safe streets against a defenseless "enemy," no matter what the cause or motivation.

IRA, SLA, PLO or PDQ ( whomever and whatever, these initialized would-be warriors who dealt only in terror and intimidation of civil-populaces would find no stir of regret from the likes of a Mack Bolan should they ever rise into his gunsights; he would give them what they had bought by their own activities, and their blood would make no stains upon his soul. The world had changed, yes, and so had Mack Bolan... but not that much.

Not that much. The enemies of Man were still their own judges and their own juries-and Bolan was still their Executioner. Some things would never change.

Mack Bolan flattened himself against the dirty brick building and slid cautiously around the corner. The narrow garbage-strewn alley was oppressively dark. It smelled of urine and decay. Dank puddles from the morning's heavy rain still freckled the grimy cobblestones like pools of black ink.

The puddles nearest the main streets reflected shades of red neon. Each sign, in various stages of disrepair, was promising something just short of paradise.

Paradise, sure, Bolan frowned with disgust that was the place where there was no morning after. But Bolan was not concerned with paradise right now. More like its opposite.

He held his breath a moment, listening for threatening sounds. There was nothing too unusual. Just the normal night-life noises of too much drink and laughter that was too loud. Things that folks did to hide the too little happiness that goes with life in a dumpy hotel in a sleazy part of Frankfurt, Germany. Bolan waited for a flurry of headlights to pass by before sticking his head back around the corner and waving briskly for the two MP'S to follow.

Seconds later he heard the clomp of heavy combat boots as the MP'S jogged around the corner, splashing through the murky puddles, M16-AI rifles clutched in front of them. They came expectantly to Bolan, young faces alive with determination to do a good job for the mysterious Colonel Phoenix to whom they had been assigned only a couple of hours before. Both had less than two years experience in the U.S. Army. But they knew enough to recognize a real soldier when they saw one. And they saw one in this Colonel Phoenix. "Yes, sir!" was Corporal Philo Tandy reported, snapping to attention. His trim blond hair peeked out from under his white MP helmet. He was very large and very young. "What next, sir?"

"Justias we planned it, Corporal," Bolan said, standing tall before them in his skin-tight black nightsuit. The .44 AutoMag was strapped to his hip. The 9mm Beretta Brigadier, with sound suppressor screwed tightly in place, rode snugly in the snap-draw holster under Bolan's left arm.

Extra clips were tucked away within easy reach.

Should he need them.

He hoped he wouldn't. Just a quick round-up operation. In and out with nobody hurt, that was the plan. Plans, of course, like people, have a way of unraveling on their own.

It had been a tough probe right from the start, with no time for the usual precautions. Mack did'nt like rushing in like some comicbook soldier, a grenade in each hand and a submachine gun clenched between his teeth.

Hell, he had hardly had time to change his fatigues from the Warco wipeout in the Everglades when Hal Brognola and April Rose cornered him during a quiet dinner at Stony Man Farm.

Brognola had addressed him as Striker, and Bolan immediately knew something foul was in the wind.

At the mention of his code name, his fresh four-inch wound earned in Algeria smarted as if in alert.