Don Pendleton: Jungle Hunt

Hostile takeover

Genocide is spreading through the jungles of South America. The swift and silent massacre in villages on the Ecuadorian border seems to be part of a larger plan fueled by blatant greed. Mack Bolan heads into the rain forest to expose the truth behind the slaughter and put an end to this new wave of atrocities.

Bolan comes face-to-face with pure evil when he gets caught in the cross fire between a rogue army general hungry for power and a ruthless multinational corporation plotting to reap billions from the blood of the innocent. But the Executioner is ready to lay his trap as he heads deep into the bush to stalk the deadliest predator of all—man.

The masked man came in low

Mack Bolan staggered backward, lining up his sights on his opponent. Before he could draw a bead, the man was on him, grabbing the pistol. Bolan hit the earth with a breath-stealing thump, his gun flying from his hands. His opponent jumped on top of him and settled on his chest, crushing the air out of his lungs.

Just as Bolan’s vision began contracting to a fuzzy gray tunnel, his hand scrabbled over the other man’s mask and found his unprotected throat. Curling his fingers, Bolan threw a short punch directly at his enemy’s Adam’s apple. Taken by surprise, the man choked. His grip slackened for a moment, and that was all Bolan needed.

Twisting his upper body, he wrenched the merc’s hands from his throat and shoved him off.

Bolan rose first.

Tackling his opponent, he slammed his interlaced fingers into the back of the man’s neck.

The merc collapsed to the ground, with the Executioner on top of him, and lay there, unmoving, as one last breath wheezed out of him.

Jungle Hunt

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Do not call the forest that shelters you a jungle.

—African proverb

I often find that those who rape and pillage villages within Third World nations think no one will notice or care. And I am happy to show the perpetrators the error of their ways.

—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.

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Travis Morgan for his contribution to this work.

Contents

PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Quito, Ecuador

The air in the large office, located in a nondescript building on a side street of the capital city, was humid and still, barely stirred by a slow-moving ceiling fan. The daily rain had already come, leaving a damp scent of water ignored by the two men in the room.

Jaime Cordero sat in the guest seat, a leather-upholstered wingback chair that squeaked with his every movement. A thin, stooped man, his shoulders were hunched from decades of civil service, service that had worn on him over the years, lined his face, eroded his stature, receded his hairline. His brown, off-the-rack suit hung on him like a scarecrow’s costume, a stained tie loosely knotted around his neck. His watery brown eyes, magnified behind thick-lensed glasses, roamed nervously around the room, but always came back to rest on the alligator briefcase resting on top of the large mahogany desk.

The man sitting behind the desk was the exact opposite of Cordero in every way. Alfredo Roldos was the picture of health, his slightly protruding stomach hardly showing under the vest of his tailored navy three-piece Savile Row suit. His thick black hair, accented with just a touch of silver at his temples, was brushed back from a handsome widow’s peak. His manicured hands were swift and sure as they clipped the end off a Don Conti Robusto. “Are you sure you won’t join me?”

“N-no, Mr. Roldos—I simply wish to take care of our business.”

“Of course, but I hope you do not mind if I indulge.” Roldos applied an even blue flame from his butane lighter to the end of the cigar, drawing smoke slowly and letting it leak out the side of his mouth.

“No, sir.”

Roldos savored his Robusto for another minute, exhaling the smoke in lazy plumes that were barely stirred by the overhead fan. Across the desk, leather squeaked as the other man shifted uneasily.

At length, Roldos set his cigar down in a mirror-bright silver ashtray. “Well, I suppose we should get down to business.”

* * *

GALO MOVED SILENTLY through the sweltering tropical jungle, his bare feet making no noise on the thick carpet of rotting vegetation and wood. His breechclout covered his private parts, but the rest of his body was naked, decorated with bright red paint and a handwoven braided necklace. His curious brown eyes looked out at the world from a round face topped by straight black hair cut bowl-style. His unblinking gaze was currently fixed on the prize he sought a few yards away. Although the forest around him teemed with noisy insects and small animals, Galo tried his hardest not to make a sound as he crept forward.

The bird he was stalking, a toucan with primarily black feathers, save for an orange-and-red chest, with a red circle around its eye, shuffled along a branch, eyeing a cluster of guarana berries. Galo was only three yards away, then only two… .

The rumble of a large engine in the distance silenced all of the nearby fauna and made Galo’s head whip around. The red-breasted toucan he’d been stalking spread its wings and launched into the air.

A frown crossing his normally happy features, Galo took off through the jungle, leaping fallen tree trunks and avoiding dangling vines as he ran toward the source of the noise. It seemed to be coming closer to him, and he thought the vehicle must have been taking the single-lane road to his village.

Galo’s heart quickened at the thought of visitors, who often brought strange and magical devices from the world outside their small jungle home. Small boxes that showed amazing pictures, devices that fit into a hand that allowed the holder to talk to someone they could not see, who might be a dozen, or even a hundred miles away. Perhaps he could even trade some of his wood carvings for a pair of the dark glasses that fit over his eyes and blocked the sun, or even, if he was lucky, a knife with a blade that folded into the handle like the one his father owned.