Don Pendleton - Fire Zone

Kinshasa might be boiling with political intrigue, but something Bolan had seen or heard in the CIA observation room had put him on edge.

The instant he stepped outside the gate, Bolan knew what it was. No fewer than three different factions watched the front of the embassy. By entering and leaving so openly he had become a target.

Quinn had let him become a new pawn in a game of political intrigue that he neither wanted nor had the time to deal with.

Bolan was diving for cover when the first bullet tried to find a home in his flesh. He rolled behind a burned-out car and came to his knees, reaching for his pistol. He scanned the area where the shots must have come from, but saw nothing. A quick glance in the direction of the embassy showed the marines were alert but not willing to come out to his aid.

The Executioner was on his own. As usual.

The Executioner ®

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Fire is the test of gold; adversity of strong men.

—Seneca

c. 3 BC-AD 65

All that glitters isn’t gold. Nobody can put a price on justice.

—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.

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

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

It was a perfect day to start a forest fire.

The weather in Idaho had been dry all summer long, the result of an overly aggressive La Niña drying up the usual rains that made the mountains come alive with greenery. What was, in good years, a hillside covered with ponderosa pine and juniper now stretched as dry as a tinderbox, not quite brown but far from the vibrant green that the Boise National Forest usually enjoyed. The camo-dressed man moved swiftly through the woods with his twenty-pound pack, heavy footsteps crunching dried pine needles.

He held up a GPS unit to better see the display and adjusted his path according to the satellite-sent information until he came to an area that looked like any other at the edge of a meadow. But this was the spot. The Spot.

He shrugged off the backpack and let it fall to the ground, placing the GPS beside it to verify the exact location. Even with the enhanced number of satellites—he needed at least three for a proper fix—he couldn’t get closer than three yards to the spot. For what he intended, this was good enough. Dropping to his knees, he rummaged through the pack and pulled out two plastic-wrapped boxes the size of bread loaves. He carefully placed each on the forest floor in a pattern he had practiced until it was second nature. Drawing out the last box required more finesse, since it contained the PETN detonators.

As he stripped off the plastic wrapping from the det cord laid into the packages like snowy white intestines, he froze. The wind had died, but his keen hearing picked up sounds from a hundred yards away.

Laughter. Snippets of a bawdy song wailed by a man with a baritone voice, followed by a higher-pitched woman’s complaint. The complaint disappeared suddenly, replaced by a baritone laugh and girlish giggles. He was not alone.

Tipping his head to one side, he homed in on the two hikers moving across a meadow in front of him. Fading back into the forest and letting them pass was out of the question. A quick check of his watch showed that the deadline was rushing down on him. He touched his earbud and considered calling Red Leader. The thought passed as quickly as it had come to him. He knew what Red Leader would say—and it would scorch his ass.

Leaving his partially unwound det cord and blasting caps where he had placed them on the ground, he stood and reached behind to the small of his back. His fingers closed on a sheathed KA-BAR knife. He watched the hikers steadily approaching. As he had thought, a boy and a girl, maybe not out of their teens, intent on an afternoon communing with nature and each other.

The girl saw him first and tugged at her boyfriend’s arm. The boy half turned, misinterpreted her intentions and tried to kiss her. She ducked away and avoided his lips, speaking rapidly.

The boy turned and looked across the meadow. His shoulders slumped in resignation at the realization that what he sought most in the national forest was not going to be found as soon as he had hoped.

“Hello!” the boy called in an attempt to make the most of his bad luck.

The man in camo stood silently, hand behind his back, fingers lightly circling the hilt of the knife. For all his outward composure, inside he seethed. He was going to be behind schedule. Red Leader would do more than scorch his sorry ass if that happened. They were on a tight schedule, and every man had to execute to the second.

“Hi, there,” the girl said more hesitantly. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

The man only nodded. He did not trust his English, though that hardly mattered. Tourists from all over the world came to the Pacific Northwest, and many vacationed to the east in Idaho. He had been told this for his cover.

“You see anybody else out here? In the last hour or so?” The boy came forward, staying a step or two ahead of his girlfriend as if he might be afraid someone would spirit her away.

“No one.” The man went cold inside. Were there others here to slow him and further delay the execution of his mission?

“Good. We were hoping we’d find a spot to, you know, sit and talk.”

“Oh, Jerry,” the girl said, punching him playfully. “That’s not what you said you wanted to do.” She stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. The boy grinned crookedly. The man had a good idea what she had said. She was a typical looking American teenager. Too much meat on her bones, though after the skinny women in his country, he did not mind that so much. But she tittered and appeared pushy. He did not like that in American women. Even the ones he did not spend the night with.