Don Pendleton: Nuclear Reaction

Before it came, one of the soldiers recognized the danger. Calling out to his companions, he rose and turned to run. He wasn’t fast enough. The blast rocked both vehicles, its shrapnel taking down the would-be runner like a point-blank shotgun blast. It also burst the lead jeep’s fuel tank and ignited a spare can of gasoline on the rear deck of the passenger compartment, instantly enveloping both vehicles in flames.

Watching from cover, Bolan saw a handful of soldiers burst from cover, all of them on fire and beating at the flames with blistered hands. They ran instead of dropping to the ground and rolling, partly out of panic, and because the turf around them was on fire, as well. A lake of burning fuel surrounded them, allowing nowhere to go except a mad rush for the tree line that would offer no help, no shelter.

Bolan left them to it.

#263 Skysniper

#264 Iron Fist

#265 Freedom Force

#266 Ultimate Price

#267 Invisible Invader

#268 Shattered Trust

#269 Shifting Shadows

#270 Judgment Day

#271 Cyberhunt

#272 Stealth Striker

#273 UForce

#274 Rogue Target

#275 Crossed Borders

#276 Leviathan

#277 Dirty Mission

#278 Triple Reverse

#279 Fire Wind

#280 Fear Rally

#281 Blood Stone

#282 Jungle Conflict

#283 Ring of Retaliation

#284 Devil’s Army

#285 Final Strike

#286 Armageddon Exit

#287 Rogue Warrior

#288 Arctic Blast

#289 Vendetta Force

#290 Pursued

#291 Blood Trade

#292 Savage Game

#293 Death Merchants

#294 Scorpion Rising

#295 Hostile Alliance

#296 Nuclear Game

#297 Deadly Pursuit

#298 Final Play

#299 Dangerous Encounter

#300 Warrior’s Requiem

#301 Blast Radius

#302 Shadow Search

#303 Sea of Terror

#304 Soviet Specter

#305 Point Position

#306 Mercy Mission

#307 Hard Pursuit

#308 Into the Fire

#309 Flames of Fury

#310 Killing Heat

#311 Night of the Knives

#312 Death Gamble

#313 Lockdown

#314 Lethal Payload

#315 Agent of Peril

#316 Poison Justice

#317 Hour of Judgment

#318 Code of Resistance

#319 Entry Point

#320 Exit Code

#321 Suicide Highway

#322 Time Bomb

#323 Soft Target

#324 Terminal Zone

#325 Edge of Hell

#326 Blood Tide

#327 Serpent’s Lair

#328 Triangle of Terror

#329 Hostile Crossing

#330 Dual Action

#331 Assault Force

#332 Slaughter House

#333 Aftershock

#334 Jungle Justice

#335 Blood Vector

#336 Homeland Terror

#337 Tropic Blast

#338 Nuclear Reaction

Nuclear Reaction

Don Pendleton

For James Morton

It is ironical that in an age when we have prided ourselves on our progress in the intelligent care and teaching of our children we have at the same time put them at the mercy of new and most terrible weapons of destruction.

—Pearl S. Buck, 1892–1973

What America Means to Me

Demagogues and terrorists have too many weapons in their arsenal. Somebody needs to draw a line, and this one’s down to me.

—Mack Bolan

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

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Darice Pahlavi wondered if this would be the last day of her life. She’d spoken of it with the others, when she’d offered to complete the task that no one else within their circle could perform. The rest were all sincere enough, but none of them had access to the data that was needed.

Only she was inside.

She recognized the irony. A generation earlier, no woman of her nationality or faith would have been educated adequately, much less trusted to participate in such events.

But things had changed. In that respect, at least.

Some things, she feared, would never change. The lust for power that consumed some individuals was as powerful as ever. The egomania that warped their view of life and everything around them, made them believe that only they were fit to make the life-or-death decisions that affected thousands, even millions.

Perhaps Pahlavi herself had shared a measure of that guilt, she thought. But she had woken up in time to save herself. To save her soul.

The question burning in her mind was whether she could save her nation, and perhaps the world at large, from a horrendous nightmare in the making.

It could mean death if she failed, but she felt compelled to try.

Concealing the material had not been difficult. The two computer CD-ROMs were slim enough to hide beneath her clothing. She had taped them to her inner thighs, which were slim enough that she did not produce a plastic scraping sound with every step she took. The tape was uncomfortable, but it would hold its grip.

She’d delayed the taping until she was nearly finished for the day. It would’ve been a dicey proposition, working all day in the lab, with two disks plastered to her thighs, but she could easily endure an hour of discomfort, walking to the bus outside and riding to her home. Once she was there, and safe from prying eyes…

She caught herself relaxing prematurely and cut short her reverie. She wasn’t home yet, wasn’t even close. A hundred things could still go wrong.

Anxiety overwhelmed her, made her wish that she could run back to the washroom, but she couldn’t go again so soon. It might provoke an inquiry. Was something wrong? Was she unwell? Did she require examination by the lab’s standby physician? Had she been contaminated in some way?