Don Pendleton: Radical Edge

Collision course

A hijacked tanker train loaded with fuel quickly becomes a high-octane weapon targeted at a massive oil field outside Dallas. The domestic terrorist group behind this savage plot is intent on delivering a double blow of homegrown hell by sending the U.S. economy an incendiary shockwave and slaughtering an entire community of migrant oil workers.

Mack Bolan’s mission turns into a death race to secure the speeding bomb and rescue the innocent hostages being used as human shields. When—and if—he succeeds, his directive expands to capturing the neo-Nazi leader alive. But Bolan’s got a vengeance-hungry rogue FBI agent on his tail, taking aim at anyone standing in the way of his personal vendetta. And when the mission takes to the streets of Houston, Bolan joins a blood pursuit where only the winner survives.

“Go! Bomb! Run!”

The first incendiary bomb went off. Almost, but not quite in the same beat, the others erupted. A white flash and a ball of heat punched Mack Bolan in the small of his back, burning his neck, singeing his hairline. He tried to turn, tried to bring up his arms to protect his head.

Then he was falling. As Bolan floated through the air, as if suspended in space, he turned and saw the finger of thick, black smoke roiling from the instantly flash-burned Chevy, climbing high into the sky in oily ropes.

The pavement rushed up, and darkness claimed him.

Other titles available in this series:

A Dying Evil

Deep Treachery

War Load

Sworn Enemies

Dark Truth

Breakaway

Blood and Sand

Caged

Sleepers

Strike and Retrieve

Age of War

Line of Control

Breached

Retaliation

Pressure Point

Silent Running

Stolen Arrows

Zero Option

Predator Paradise

Circle of Deception

Devil’s Bargain

False Front

Lethal Tribute

Season of Slaughter

Point of Betrayal

Ballistic Force

Renegade

Survival Reflex

Path to War

Blood Dynasty

Ultimate Stakes

State of Evil

Force Lines

Contagion Option

Hellfire Code

War Drums

Ripple Effect

Devil’s Playground

The Killing Rule

Patriot Play

Appointment in Baghdad

Havana Five

The Judas Project

Plains of Fire

Colony of Evil

Hard Passage

Interception

Cold War Reprise

Mission: Apocalypse

Altered State

Killing Game

Diplomacy Directive

Betrayed

Sabotage

Conflict Zone

Blood Play

Desert Fallout

Extraordinary Rendition

Devil’s Mark

Savage Rule

Infiltration

Resurgence

Kill Shot

Stealth Sweep

Grave Mercy

Treason Play

Assassin’s Code

Shadow Strike

Decision Point

Road of Bones

Radical Edge

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Revenge is sweet, sweeter than life itself—so say fools.

—Juvenal

There is revenge, and there is justice. One will destroy you. The other, when you have fought for it, makes it possible for you to go on living. A man who can’t tell the difference is dead inside.

—Mack Bolan

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Phil Elmore for his contribution to this work.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

BPA

CHAPTER ONE

Outside Alamogordo, New Mexico

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, put a single 9 mm bullet through the left eye of the tattooed, skinhead terrorist, stepping over the body just as it collapsed onto the dusty ground. Shifting the FN P90 he wore on a sling across his chest, he let the silenced snout of his Beretta lead the way.

Neo-Nazis, Bolan thought with distaste. A dime a dozen. The domestic terrorists were like roaches, forever scuttling about no matter how many you crushed under your boot.

The soldier continued his slow crawl along the fence line surrounding the ramshackle, clapboard safe house. The structure was a mess; it appeared, at first glance, to be a mass of sun-bleached plywood and faded plastic tarps held together with hope and weighed down with cinder blocks.

A second skinhead sentry risked a look around the corner of the building, probably thinking he had heard something. He had, and it was the second-to-last thing he ever would hear. The very last thing was the muffled clap of Bolan’s Beretta as a 147-grain hollowpoint bullet dug a channel through the sentry’s brain.

Bolan moved quickly, crouched low, staying beneath the sight lines of the open windows. They were covered with heavy plastic over sheets of what was probably Plexiglas. The interior of the safe house buzzed with activity. Heavy-metal music blared from a stereo. Shouts and jeers could be heard. There was a party going on inside. Bolan had to hand it to the terrorists; they were remarkably true to type. When neo-Nazis weren’t preying on those they hated, they spent their free time mired in teenage-mentality hedonism. The fact that they had posted sentries at all surprised Bolan, at least mildly.

Hal Brognola, director of the Sensitive Operations Group based at Stony Man Farm, Virginia, had placed the secure satellite call to Bolan in the middle of the night, waking the Executioner.

“They’re animals, Striker,” Brognola had said, using Bolan’s code name. “Latter-day race cultists, worse than every skinhead and white supremacist gang you’ve taken down in years past. The group calls itself Twelfth Reich.”

“That’s imaginative,” Bolan had commented.

Brognola ignored that. “Their leader is one Shane Hyde. His file and psych profile are long and complicated. ‘Delusional nut job’ is the short version, but with caveats. He’s not so unbalanced that he isn’t also extremely dangerous, nor so wide-eyed that he’ll tip his hand before he’s ready. He has military experience, too. He was discharged from the Army on medical grounds just after Desert Storm. Seems his commanding officer considered him unstable and, after a series of altercations with several black and Hispanic soldiers, Hyde was shuffled around until the Army could be rid of him. He disappeared for a few years after his discharge, only to reappear on the Mexico border at the center of several high-profile immigration disputes.”

“I take it he’s not a fan of illegal aliens.”

“Who is?” Brognola sounded as if he were speaking through clenched teeth. Which meant he was chewing an unlit cigar, something he did under stress. Bolan could hear the edge in his old friend’s voice. “Hyde is an avowed racist, but he’s not just that. He’s got charisma, Striker. He’s smart and he knows how to network. He’s got a real knack for locating, and absorbing into his plans, people who share his outrage over the plight of the white middle class in America. That’s his rallying cry, incidentally. He sees himself as champion of what he calls ‘the only group it’s socially acceptable to oppress.’”

“He hasn’t just talked about it.”

“No. We believe he’s personally or indirectly responsible for at least a score of racially motivated bombings and murders,” Brognola said. “The pace of the crimes tenuously linked to Hyde and Twelfth Reich is increasing, too. They’re getting stronger and growing more bold. Until now they’ve done their best to keep secret, for the most part. The FBI has been on to them, or to parts of several cells, for a while now, trying to build a case that would take the investigation to the top. Hyde’s cagey, though. He’s managed to stay far enough from his handiwork that most of the ‘legitimate’ government agencies don’t have enough on him.”