Don Pendleton: Recovery Force

The gangbanger raised his gun and sprayed indiscriminately in the warrior’s direction. Bolan took cover and grimaced at the thought that an innocent bystander might get in the way.

Unfortunately for the gun-toting hood, he’d never have the chance to kill Bolan or a noncombatant.

The man’s body began to rock under the impact of the half-dozen or so police weapons suddenly aimed at him. The cops doled out a fury of destructive automatic fire from their Colt AR-15s and pistols. The thug staggered a moment and then collapsed to the pavement.

Bolan continued in motion around the corner and sprinted down the street. He would have to lay low for a while, come back later to retrieve his vehicle. He couldn’t spend the next twenty-four hours in a police lockup under interrogation. He still had a lot to do in Phoenix.

The mission had only just begun.

Recovery Force

www.mirabooks.co.uk

The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits.

—Leo Tolstoy

1828–1910

What I Believe

I won’t stand by and watch this epidemic of terror spread throughout America. As long as I have breath in me, I will stamp out these kidnappers, murderers and drug peddlers at the source.

—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.

“We’re in the eye of the storm. If it doesn’t stop here, if we’re not able to fix it here and get it turned around, it will go across the nation.”

—Chief of Police

Phoenix, Arizona

I won’t stand by and watch this epidemic of terror spread throughout America. As long as I have breath in me, I will stamp out these kidnappers, murderers and drug peddlers at the source.

—Mack Bolan, The Executioner

Prologue

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

Epilogue

The girl awoke with a start, covered in sweat.

Her heart thumped in her chest; her breath came in short bursts—more like gasping than breathing. She tried to reach up to the pain at the back of her head that throbbed with each beat of her heart. In her state of murky consciousness, it took time to realize that someone had bound her hands….

SHE DIDN’T REMEMBER passing out but realized she must have because she came to again with much the same reaction. She noticed her parched throat this time and it felt as if her tongue had swollen to twice its normal size. She wanted to puke but she realized if she did it could mean death. The gag would prevent her from voiding and she might choke on her own vomit. So she wretched a few times and swallowed back anything more.

Only fourteen years of age, she hadn’t known such terror before and probably wouldn’t know it again.

Then she thought of her boyfriend, Dino Montera, only two years older than her. He was a tall kid, muscular and in good shape, a football player on the junior varsity team. Even Dino had been caught off guard by the men who seemed to come out of nowhere. At least, Ann-Elise thought that they were men, although she sort of remembered hearing a woman’s voice at some point, too. The only other thing she could remember was that they spoke in another language, probably Spanish. Maybe Spanish? Ann-Elise couldn’t be really sure, but she would have to pay better attention because the cops would want to know when they came to her rescue.

Then she looked over to her right, turning her head slowly to stave off the pain. She remembered, as she stared at her boyfriend through blurred vision—poor Dino was tied to a chair, his face blood-caked—that something had struck her in the back of the head. Hard. That’s why it probably hurt so much. God, maybe she had brain damage or something. She’d heard about that kind of thing happening after being hit in the head. And Ann-Elise knew about those things because she’d studied them in her dad’s medical books. One day, she wanted to be a doctor, like her dad.

Her mother, a prominent attorney to residents of Scottsdale, had warned her not to go gallivanting about downtown Phoenix without an adult. What difference would that have made? If the men who had knocked her unconscious were able to take down a young man Dino’s size, they would have been able to take down any adult just as easily.

Ann-Elise didn’t have to wonder anymore about her captors because one of them suddenly appeared, blocking her line of sight. She looked up at the man but he’d concealed his face with some sort of mask. She couldn’t really make out anything about him other than he was very big, and he had dark eyes. There wasn’t any emotion in them. They stared at her without pity or consideration, and Ann-Elise considered in that moment the horrific possibility they might hurt her more. Ann-Elise decided not to think about such things yet. Obviously, they had kidnapped her and Dino for ransom and she knew her father and mother had enough money to pay. They would pay her captors, pay whatever it took. And they had many wealthy friends, too. They lived in a city that was home to some of the wealthiest people in the world. At least, that’s what everyone at the academy said.

Boy, she wouldn’t be able to live this one down.

The man stared at her another moment and then turned his attention to Dino. Ann-Elise watched with a mixed sense of shock and terror as the man reached down to grab something and came up with a large, plastic bucket. He suddenly heaved the bucket in Dino’s direction and doused him with water. Probably cold water.

The bastard!

Dino came suddenly awake and choked back what sounded like a scream. The man stood there a moment, arms folded, and Ann-Elise thought she heard him make a noise. Something that sounded like a laugh. Then the man reached forward suddenly, untied Dino and hauled him out of the chair. Dino staggered and stumbled around like a drunk, and Ann-Elise realized he’d probably put up more of a fight than she had, so they had to beat him up to stop him. Her poor, poor Dino. He had taken punishment intended for her just because he tried to protect her.