Don Pendleton: Border Offensive

BLOOD TOLL

American smugglers intent on running terrorists across the Mexican border don’t realize that the extra man they’ve picked up en route is working undercover to stop them. Or that the man is Mack Bolan and he’s dedicated to preventing their treacherous human cargo from ever reaching the U.S.

Partnered with a border patrol agent, Bolan needs to come up with a Plan B fast when their covers are blown...or risk the country coming under a devastating terror attack. The Executioner is setting up his own form of border patrol and no one is crossing without his permission.

The smell of blood had gotten the jaguar’s attention

The Executioner turned slowly as the cat circled him, never quite letting itself be seen by its intended prey. Bolan’s grip on the tire iron tightened as he swung it, trying to loosen his protesting muscles.

“Walk away, pal,” Bolan said. “Go look for dinner elsewhere.”

The only reply he got was the sound of the animal moving through the brush. He caught the flash of a tail out of the corner of his eye. Green eyes met his and Bolan froze. He was very aware of his blood dripping onto the thirsty soil, and of the pounding of his heart.

Bolan let the tire iron slide through his fingers until he was gripping the end. He’d get one swing, just one. “So it had better be good, right?”

The jaguar snarled.

“Come on then. You want me? I’m not going anywhere.”

The jaguar paused, then its muscles bunched and its tail went rigid. Bolan tensed. The cat sprang.

And the Executioner—his body honed into a weapon second-to-none—lunged to meet it.

Border Offensive

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.

—Tony Blair,

British Prime Minister

There are no borders for terrorism—no lines it won’t cross. But wherever innocent lives are threatened, I will go there and wage my war. Whether it’s here at home or on soils abroad, I will fight strong.

—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 com-mand center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

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

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

Special thanks and acknowledgment to

Joshua Reynolds for his contribution to this work.

Contents

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 1

The Mexican border

The truck was military surplus, but any insignia hinting at its origins had long since faded beneath the glare of the Mexican sun. Inside the truck, beneath a reinforced tarp, rested a minor, if profitable, amount of death in posse—black tar heroin. On top of the truck, a substantially larger amount of death in esse clung to the tarp, pressing his long frame as flat as it could go. Mack Bolan blinked, trying to eject the grit from his eyes, and shifted his weight for the hundredth time in as many minutes.

It had been the task of moments getting on the truck, but the ride had been a test to his patience. The heat, the dust and the uncomfortable realities of his position were wearing down his normally stoic outlook about such things. His skin itched with dirt beneath his fatigues, and the body armor felt more and more constrictive as time wore on. He had taken numerous wounds in his long and bloody war—knives, bullets and bombs had each taken a ferryman’s toll from his flesh at some point. At this moment, it seemed as if he could feel every single one of those old wounds.

Bolan bobbed his head, risking a glance at his surroundings. Buildings swept past at a lazy speed. Clapboard affairs with broken, filthy windows and signs that were no longer legible.

In other words, perfect.

A dead-end town, situated on the edge of the Sonoran Desert, caught between national boundaries. There were a hundred just like it scattered along the length of the United States’ southern border—invisible, forgotten places. Some inhabited, others not, but all perfect places to do business for drug traffickers of either nationality. Like leaks in a levee, they excreted trickles of narcotics from Mexico into Texas, Arizona and California.

Bolan had been tracking the current shipment for days, hoping to plug this particular leak. He’d taken out a poppy field in Sinaloa earlier in the week, and then caught up with the shipment as it approached the Arizona border. Getting onto the truck had been interesting and had used up his quota of luck for the week. From here on out, he was playing it careful.

The truck rumbled over a pothole and Bolan gritted his teeth as he was rattled down to his bones. He tried to stretch, to work out the kinks in his limbs, knowing he’d need every iota of agility in the coming minutes. When you were dealing with a bullet, even a fraction of an inch could be a useful distance, and the difference between life and death.

According to his sources, there shouldn’t be more than a dozen men all told at the rendezvous, but that was plenty. The odds were always the same once you crept up into double digits—namely, bad.

He smiled, baring his teeth. Bad odds only meant that he’d have to work fast to even them. And he was in the mood for “fast.”

The truck gave a depressed growl as it came to a halt behind a two-story building that had seen better decades. Voices, speaking Spanish and English in equal measure, rose to audibility. Bolan tensed and prepared to make his move. He pushed himself up an inch, balancing on the struts holding up the tarp, and switched his grip on the Heckler & Koch UMP-45 strapped across his chest. There was a van parked nearby. It had once been white, but presently it was the color of nicotine, and it was occupied. Bolan counted eight heads, plus the man sitting in the van. The odds were better than he’d thought.

The van door slammed. “It’s about damn time, Ernesto. I got places to be.”

Bolan pulled himself slowly toward the edge of the truck facing away from the voices.