Don Pendleton: Raw Fury

Without hesitating, Rosli stepped forward and planted a firm toe-kick with impeccable accuracy. The grenade whipped back the way it had come.

“Down!” Bolan ordered.

They hit the deck. The grenade exploded in the alley mouth. Bolan counted to three, his ears ringing from the blast, then surged up with the Beretta 93-R in both hands.

He advanced on the alley mouth. The bodies of the shooters he and Rosli had already killed were splayed in gruesome wreckage, torn by the explosion. Bolan had seen enough carnage in his lengthy personal war that the sight did not unnerve him, but he would never truly be used to it; no sane human being ever became completely inured to death and destruction. The Executioner simply did what he had to do, and took in measured stride the dead men he left in his wake—men who tried to take his life, or the lives of good men, women and children. If at some time Mack Bolan was held to account, if his tally were to be judged, he would stand unafraid before whatever power that might be.

But that day of judgment would not be this day.

The Executioner ®

www.mirabooks.co.uk

They have not wanted peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war—as though the absence of war was the same as peace.

—Dorothy Thompson

1893–1961

It has been said that if you want peace, you must prepare for war. To be prepared for armed conflict is not enough, however. To live in peace, we must have the will to fight.

—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

Mack Bolan felt sweat bead on his chest and under his arms as the tropical heat of Kuala Lumpur struck him with palpable force. Temperatures were up slightly, according to the canned news reports televised in the main terminal, but while Bolan found the high nineties a bit on the warm side, it wasn’t unbearable. The change was a shock after the air-conditioning of the airport, but the day’s highs would not vary much in the city’s year-round equatorial climate. If the operation went as planned, for that matter, he wouldn’t be in Malaysia long enough to care.

He was glad to leave the frustrating congestion of the airport and picked up his pace accordingly. Glancing at his watch, he verified that he was still on schedule. The operation was tight, because it had to be. He had been aware of the numbers falling for the entire flight from the United States.

Bolan was dressed for the climate in a pair of tan cargo pants, lightweight hiking boots and a loose, short-sleeved khaki shirt that billowed about him in the humid breeze. It was bright outside the terminal; he took a pair of mirrored, aviator-framed sunglasses from his shirt pocket and put them on.

The man known to some as the Executioner ignored the insistent clerks behind the taxi counter, knowing that other arrangements had already been made for him. Bolan allowed himself a small, tight smile as he imagined their dismay. He was no stranger to the taxi scams outside Kuala Lumpur’s International Airport, or outside the airports in dozens of other countries around the globe. Had he been left to his own devices, the Express Rail Link might have been an option, but he’d been warned to avoid that, too.

Outside the terminal, a line of taxis waited. Bolan glanced at his watch again. It was exactly two in the afternoon.

As if on cue, a battered, livery-marked Hyundai separated itself from the queue and roared around the lead vehicle to stop directly in front of Bolan. The car was dragging its muffler behind it, but the driver seemed not to notice. Behind him, the cabbie whose fare had just been stolen leaned on his horn, shouting a stream of what were probably profanities. Bolan did not speak the language but assumed it was Malay. Then the driver switched to English, leaving no doubt in the soldier’s mind as to the man’s intentions. Bolan remembered something from the tourism pamphlets on the flight; English was taught commonly in Malaysian schools.

“Get in, get in,” the driver said, leaning toward the open passenger window. “Your friend Hal says hello.”

Bolan got into the passenger seat. The taxi growled as the driver put the accelerator to the floor, causing the little car to shudder and buck as it pulled away from the outraged cabbie in the rearview mirror.

“And you are?” Bolan raised an eyebrow as his driver pushed the Hyundai through the dense city traffic, cutting off other drivers with reckless abandon.

“You may call me Rosli,” he said. His English was excellent, with just a hint of an accent. “You are Mr. Cooper, yes?”

“Yes,” Bolan nodded. Matt Cooper was a cover identity he frequently used.

Rosli was of slight build, with a shaved head and a dark complexion. Deep laugh lines made him look older than he probably was. He wore a pair of lightly tinted, round sunglasses, a loose, beige, short-sleeved shirt and a pair of knee-length shorts. Bolan caught a glimpse of his sandaled feet as the man tromped the accelerator for all he was worth.

They drove in silence for a while, Bolan taking in the cityscape. He could see the glass-shelled Petronas Towers in the distance, at one time the tallest buildings in the world. The city was a mix of modern and post-modern architecture, with a healthy dose of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Colonial mixed in.

“I am surprised,” Rosli said finally, “that you are so trusting. I was led to believe you were…a dangerous man. How do you know I am not sent to, what is the word…waylay you?”

“If you were,” Bolan said casually, “I’d kill you, take the wheel and use the curb to bring the car to a stop.”

Rosli opened his mouth to say something, caught something in Bolan’s expression and thought better of it. Finally, he laughed. “Fair enough, Mr. Cooper,” he chuckled. “Fair enough. I do believe you would, too.”