Don Pendleton: Final Coup

The Executioner expected to die a violent death someday

But the civilians in the lobby had not signed up for battle pay, and if Bolan failed in the action he had to take within the next few seconds, they would surely die.

The bomber had almost reached the CIA man when the Executioner turned around.

As Bolan increased his pace to catch up with the man in the vest, the CIA agent moved smoothly into the bomber’s path and grabbed both of his wrists. Bolan drew his fixed-blade knife from behind his back and raised it high over his head. All other movement in the lobby had stopped.

The bomber screamed something in Arabic as Bolan dived through the air, the blade clenched in a reverse grip. As he collided with the man’s back, he brought the blade down with all his strength, penetrating the man’s skull.

A few gasps came from around the lobby. Then the screams of men and women filled the air. Bolan pried the blade out of the bomber’s skull and wiped it on the back of the man’s vest before turning him over.

“Murderers!” a high-pitched female voice shouted. “Call the police.”

The Executioner unzipped the bomber’s vest and a collective gasp came from the crowd when the people saw a good two-dozen sticks of dynamite strapped to the dead man’s body.

There were no more accusations of homicide.

The Executioner ®

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

—Ronald Reagan

1911–2004

All people have a right to live and die freely. Anyone who dares to take that away will face my wrath and suffer inevitable defeat. That’s a promise.

—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

Epilogue

It was hardly the way Mack Bolan had expected the mission to begin.

When the sudden explosion of rifle-fire blew past him on both sides, the man known as the Executioner drew the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle from the Kydex hip holster beneath his navy blue blazer. He automatically crouched into a classic “point shooting” position as his eyes scanned the Yaounde, Cameroon, airport terminal with the speed of lightning, looking for a target to return fire.

At the same time, he wondered what had gone wrong.

As it always did in times of grave danger, the Executioner’s mind geared into overdrive, working at the speed of light, and outdistancing even the most sophisticated computers. His brain took in the information provided by his senses, processed it all in a thousandth of a second and began kicking out potential answers to the assault.

Bolan saw a small movement in a second-story window of the terminal, and at the same time a flash of light. The sun had just bounced off what had to be the lens of a rifle scope.

The target was beyond the distance for point shooting, so Bolan rose into a classic isosceles stance and lined up the Desert Eagle’s sights. He squeezed the trigger, sending his first .44 Magnum jacketed lead round toward the flash of light, while his mind continued to process the information it was receiving.

Who were the shooters? The sniper rifle scope and the rapid autofire didn’t go together. That told him there was at least one more man shooting at them.

But why had the onslaught begun in the first place? Bolan didn’t know. But one thing was certain: they knew what they were doing.

They had waited until all of the men who’d accompanied him had walked down the steps of the jet before opening fire. That, in turn, told the Executioner two more things.

Word of their coming had preceded their arrival.

And the enemy knew exactly how many men were on board.

Somewhere there was a deadly leak in security. But finding it would have to take a backseat to what was happening at the moment. Before he even thought about the mole, the Executioner and the other men had to survive this surprise attack.

Another rifle barrel poked out of a second-floor window of the terminal, roughly a hundred yards away. With both hands gripping the Desert Eagle, Bolan took careful aim once more and gently squeezed the trigger. As all distant and precisely aimed shots should, his second Magnum round came as a slight surprise. He had aimed at the top of the window, but the bullet drop at that distance sent the lethal, fragmenting hollowpoint round into a blurry headlike shape just above the rifle. Almost exactly like the first sniper had done a second earlier, whoever held this weapon fell backward, out of sight. But not before he had dropped his long gun from the window, and sent a shot of residual blood and brain tissue after it.

One down. But how many to go? The soldier had no way of knowing.

Bolan looked quickly around him. Most of the men who had accompanied him were from the U.S. Secret Service, and their hands had found Glocks, SIG-Sauers or Berettas. Dr. John Lareby—an expert in counterterrorism, guerrilla warfare, survival and executive protection—and the only representative of the CIA within the group—held a modest little Walther PPK .380 in his fist.

More shots rang out, and one of them ripped the shoulder out of Bolan’s jacket. Beneath its path, the soldier felt the heat and a slight sting. It had been ability and training, but also a good deal of luck, that he had spotted either of the two shooters. Although he could hear more gunfire and feel other bullets whizzing past to make loud clinks in the body of the plane, it was impossible to determine the exact points of origin.

Bolan knew they had only two choices: they could sprint toward the terminal and try to get below the line of fire, or they could retreat into, or behind, the plane.

It didn’t take long for him to determine which option made more sense. There was still a football field between them and the terminal, and the chances of him, Lareby and the Secret Service agents all running into the fire without getting killed was slim to say the least.