Don Pendleton: Justice Run

Interventionism Under Fire

With Europe in economic turmoil, a small fascist group led by a powerful German industrialist plans to bring the continent under one leader. But first they must weaken the U.S. so it can’t interfere. The idea is simple…. Except conspiracists don’t count on Mack Bolan.

In Bolan’s search for a missing federal agent, he finds himself in a bloody firefight at the heavily guarded estate of an international arms dealer. As the bodies pile up around him, though, intel begins to paint a picture much bigger than one missing American. It’s a picture with devastating global repercussions—and the U.S. is about to take the first, calculated hit. Bolan must chase a burning fuse across Europe and America to prevent this promised fascist takeover.

A million things could go wrong, but they had to go in anyway.

The helicopter touched down and Bolan was the first one out. He dropped into a crouch and watched for any threats while the others disembarked.

The carnage was striking. The soldier counted two helicopters, their twisted and charred remains at ten o’clock and three o’clock. Fire ate the frames and pumped thick black columns of smoke into the sky. A quick sweep of the terrain revealed five dead uniformed guards. A couple of the corpses bobbed facedown in the swimming pool, the water around them clouded with blood. The bodies of two other men, both in black, were sprawled on the ground. Bolan assumed they were part of Geiger’s crew.

He also saw the bodies of at least a half dozen men and women in khaki pants and dark green polo shirts. They seemed to be equipped with holsters, additional magazines and handcuffs. Campaign hats lay on the ground near a couple of the shot-up guards. It hadn’t been a fight; it had been a slaughter.

Justice Run

Don Pendleton

Justice is justly represented blind, because she sees no difference in the parties concerned. She has but one scale and weight, for rich and poor, great and small.

—William Penn

Some Fruits of Solitude

Justice may be blind, but I am her eyes, forever seeking out those who would escape punishment.

—Mack Bolan

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

PROLOGUE

Monaco

Three months earlier

He had to get out of there.

The elevator doors parted and Fred Gruber burst from the confined space. He found himself surrounded by the sounds of meat sizzling, knives striking cutting boards and people shouting at one another in French. He looked around and saw men and women dressed in white chef hats and stained aprons standing at cooking stations, cutting vegetables or cooking meat on large griddles. On any other day, the amateur chef would’ve considered this a gift from heaven, a chance to watch skilled cooks make five-star French cuisine.

This night he couldn’t have cared less.

He just wanted to stay alive.

At first he tried walking fast through the kitchen, hoping to pass through with a minimum of fuss. He had covered maybe ten paces when one of the chefs, a heavyset man with a handlebar mustache, spotted him. Without setting down his utensils, the guy turned toward Gruber.

“What are you doing?” the chef demanded in French. “You can’t come in here.”

Without breaking his pace, Gruber forced a smile on his face and closed the distance between them.

“Sorry,” Gruber, an American, replied in the same language. “I am lost.”

Gruber brushed past the man, who was offering to help him find his way, but Gruber tried to ignore the man. On the other side of the kitchen, he saw an exit door. He wanted to get through it, step into the warm Monaco evening and run like hell to his car.

He wore blue suit pants, black wingtips and a white broadcloth dress shirt. The tails of the shirt were pulled out of his waistband. His tie was where he’d left it, looped over the back of a mahogany chair. His Glock was stuffed into his waistband.

Before he could take another step, he felt a hand clamp heavily on his left shoulder. His stomach plummeted and he whirled. His right hand slipped up under his shirt, fingers curling around the pistol’s grip, while his other one slapped the man’s hand away. In a heartbeat the chef’s expression went from mildly irritated to surprise. Gruber took a step back from the guy, ready to order him to back off, when he heard the elevator ding followed by the whoosh of the opening doors.

Gruber yanked the Glock from his waistband and displayed it so the chef could see it. The guy’s face paled and he stepped back. Gruber wheeled and resumed his sprint for the door, shoving other members of the kitchen staff from his path. Judging by the screams, the slap of footsteps against the floor and the clatter of dishes breaking, pandemonium had broken out behind him. Though his pursuers likely were armed, he doubted they’d try shooting at him in this crowd or, for that matter, in this building. The hotel catered to the rich and powerful, which included police chiefs and military generals. The last thing the people chasing him wanted was official attention. They had been operating in the shadows for years. Gruber had no doubt they wanted to keep it that way.

That’s why they wanted to stop him. He’d spent a couple of weeks in Berlin, rooting around for information. What he’d found had knocked him on his ass. Enough so that he’d considered contacting his old cronies in Washington. He’d dismissed the idea outright. What he knew just seemed too fantastic. If he called his friends at the Bureau, they might not believe him. They might even assume he was bored in retirement and trying to drum up excitement and relive his glory days.

He wouldn’t have blamed them.

Then he’d come to Monaco, to put some final pieces together. Gruber knew their plans; he knew the players. He finally had some proof. Now all he needed was to share what he knew.

When Gruber reached the exit, he pushed down on the release bar, shoved the door open and ran outside, barely slowing at all. The night was warm, with a light breeze. But the stench of rotting food rising up from the garbage bins hung in the air. He’d put several yards between himself and the kitchen by the time he heard the door slam closed behind him. Arms and legs pumping hard, he tried to gather speed as he put some distance between himself and the building.

He hadn’t expected to end up in this situation, running for his life. A former FBI agent, he figured he’d left all the dangerous stuff behind when he had retired from the Bureau, got his PI license and started chasing wayward spouses for a daily fee plus expenses. Then he’d gotten a call from an old man offering incredible money. What did he have to do to earn it? The old man sat on a corporate board with another guy who as of late had been disappearing for days on end. Money had been disappearing from the company’s coffers, too. Could Gruber look into it? The old man was willing to pay a retainer, put him up in sweet hotels and make sure he ate like a damn king.