Don Pendleton: Rebel Force

A gunman came through the window screaming

The Executioner threw himself flat as a wild, ragged spray of rounds slapped out in his direction. He hit the pavement hard and grunted.

Bolan thrust his arm out straight and rolled over onto his side as he tried to target the charging man. Still firing, the man shuffled toward the nominal protection of a dented car. He went to one knee behind the bumper of the dark blue vehicle and brought his weapon to his shoulder.

Bolan didn’t hesitate. He rolled onto his stomach and took his Glock in both hands. His first shot hit wide of the gas hatch. His second punctured it. A jet of gasoline shot out in an arc and splashed the ground.

Bolan squeezed his trigger twice and put two more bullets through the bleeding gas tank. The second bullet ignited the flammable gasses trapped inside. A ball of flame erupted and was followed hard by a wave of concussive force. It was like hell on earth.

MACK BOLAN®

The Executioner

#266 Ultimate Price

#267 Invisible Invader

#268 Shattered Trust

#269 Shifting Shadows

#270 Judgment Day

#271 Cyberhunt

#272 Stealth Striker

#273 UForce

#274 Rogue Target

#275 Crossed Borders

#276 Leviathan

#277 Dirty Mission

#278 Triple Reverse

#279 Fire Wind

#280 Fear Rally

#281 Blood Stone

#282 Jungle Conflict

#283 Ring of Retaliation

#284 Devil’s Army

#285 Final Strike

#286 Armageddon Exit

#287 Rogue Warrior

#288 Arctic Blast

#289 Vendetta Force

#290 Pursued

#291 Blood Trade

#292 Savage Game

#293 Death Merchants

#294 Scorpion Rising

#295 Hostile Alliance

#296 Nuclear Game

#297 Deadly Pursuit

#298 Final Play

#299 Dangerous Encounter

#300 Warrior’s Requiem

#301 Blast Radius

#302 Shadow Search

#303 Sea of Terror

#304 Soviet Specter

#305 Point Position

#306 Mercy Mission

#307 Hard Pursuit

#308 Into the Fire

#309 Flames of Fury

#310 Killing Heat

#311 Night of the Knives

#312 Death Gamble

#313 Lockdown

#314 Lethal Payload

#315 Agent of Peril

#316 Poison Justice

#317 Hour of Judgment

#318 Code of Resistance

#319 Entry Point

#320 Exit Code

#321 Suicide Highway

#322 Time Bomb

#323 Soft Target

#324 Terminal Zone

#325 Edge of Hell

#326 Blood Tide

#327 Serpent’s Lair

#328 Triangle of Terror

#329 Hostile Crossing

#330 Dual Action

#331 Assault Force

#332 Slaughter House

#333 Aftershock

#334 Jungle Justice

#335 Blood Vector

#336 Homeland Terror

#337 Tropic Blast

#338 Nuclear Reaction

#339 Deadly Contact

#340 Splinter Cell

#341 Rebel Force

Rebel Force

Don Pendleton

Cowards falter, but danger is often overcome by those who nobly dare.

—Elizabeth I, 1533–1603

People acting out of cowardice make mistakes. When they do, I will be ready to take action.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

The factory sat on the banks of the Sunzha River. As silent as a mausoleum, the building was surrounded by warehouses and industrial structures all bombed to rubble in the wake of the second Chechen war. An expensive black Mercedes sat abandoned in the half-acre parking lot. The sky was starless under close cloud cover. Rain fell, dirty gray from the sky.

Mack Bolan drew his mouth into a tight line. He scanned the building and the area around it through his night-vision goggles. He searched for telltale smeary silhouettes in the monochromatic green of the high-tech device but saw nothing. Even the engine block on the Mercedes was cool. The sounds of traffic came to him from other areas of the city, muted across the distance. Close by, his ears detected only the whisper of cold wind skipping across the polluted river.

Bolan scrutinized the building, determining his approach. To the rear of the building loading docks with big roll-up bay doors sat shut and locked. The front of the building was made up of wide glass windows, and revolving doors that led into the company front offices. If Bolan approached from that direction, he’d have his back to the access road and an impossibly wide front to cover.

On the side of the building closest to him a maintenance door was set at the top of a short flight of concrete steps. Off in the distance, Bolan heard the rotors of a helicopter cruising low over the city. The Executioner’s finely honed battle instincts whispered to him. Danger lay on every side.

The Mercedes, parked in the open, with no attempt at concealment or subterfuge in a city under martial law, was an enigma. Bolan wanted to be the wild card, not have some high-end vehicle fill that role. Sitting there, sleek and black and silent, it announced a human presence in a location supposedly long abandoned.

Bolan again scanned the area.

Grozny had been locked down under the threat of terrorist action by Chechen separatists. Police units patrolled in armored personnel carriers and army checkpoints secured every major road and highway leading into the city. Russia’s federal army worked hard at a three-point mission. Keep the oil flowing, keep the rebel insurgency suppressed and minimize troop casualties. Those protocols had resulted in an occupying force prone to using their weapons more than restraint.

Bolan knew he had taken a grave risk by going armed into the sovereign territory of an allied nation dealing with the threat of a violent insurrection. It was an insurrection with increasingly solidified ties to the worldwide jihadist movement. Moving incognito, Bolan had flown into Grozny using Associated Press credentials as Matt Cooper, freelance reporter.