Don Pendleton: Contagion Option

He was cutting his feet on the blade, and only his and Grimaldi’s skill could keep his blood from spraying the U.S. government in the fallout.

It was risky, and when Bolan called Stony Man Farm for an intelligence update and to inform Brognola that he planned to go to North Korea, it wasn’t to ask permission. Such a request would have been construed as nothing less than an act of war, even if the foray was in utmost secrecy.

The Executioner wasn’t a government employee, and there was a conspiracy summoning him into the depths of an enemy stronghold.

There wasn’t an option of survival.

He either succeeded, or the world would be drawn into a war that could explode into a three-way conflict with China.

Stalk Line

Omega Game

Shock Tactic

Showdown

Precision Kill

Jungle Law

Dead Center

Tooth and Claw

Thermal Strike

Day of the Vulture

Flames of Wrath

High Aggression

Code of Bushido

Terror Spin

Judgment in Stone

Rage for Justice

Rebels and Hostiles

Ultimate Game

Blood Feud

Renegade Force

Retribution

Initiation

Cloud of Death

Termination Point

Hellfire Strike

Code of Conflict

Vengeance

Executive Action

Killsport

Conflagration

Storm Front

War Season

Evil Alliance

Scorched Earth

Deception

Destiny’s Hour

Power of the Lance

A Dying Evil

Deep Treachery

War Load

Sworn Enemies

Dark Truth

Breakaway

Blood and Sand

Caged

Sleepers

Strike and Retrieve

Age of War

Line of Control

Breached

Retaliation

Pressure Point

Silent Running

Stolen Arrows

Zero Option

Predator Paradise

Circle of Deception

Devil’s Bargain

False Front

Lethal Tribute

Season of Slaughter

Point of Betrayal

Ballistic Force

Renegade

Survival Reflex

Path to War

Blood Dynasty

Ultimate Stakes

State of Evil

Force Lines

Contagion Option

Don Pendleton

To Bobbi, as always.

This book never could have been done without you.

We must dare to think “unthinkable” thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think about “unthinkable things” because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

—J. William Fulbright,

March 27, 1964

In my War Everlasting, I have been forced to see the unthinkable put into action by the unconscionable. To contain a catastrophe, sometimes the options are to lose an entire city than to lose a nation, but as long as there is still a breath in me, my option is to lose myself to save a city.

—Mack Bolan

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

EPILOGUE

The body plummeted through the sky and crashed with a dull, sickening thump into the dry grass. More bodies followed as the transport plane made a slow, lazy circle over the field.

The team had done this a hundred times before, and the men, dressed in black, took to the field.

The bodies were hollowed-out cattle, their bellies distended with packages. Some clinked with the heavy ring of metal, while others were stiff pillows of compressed powder. Two of the cows were filled with rolls of rifles, wrapped in plastic and cushioning foam.

“Looks like Christmastime for the gang,” a man dressed in black mentioned as he pulled the weapons from the body cavity of the slaughtered animal. “Must be twenty rifles here.”

“Chatter,” another replied quietly.

The first fell quiet, admonished with a single word. Sound carried, and even though their helicopter had scanned the area for miles with infrared and radar, they still worked in hushed, professional silence to ensure their private, midnight endeavor went undetected.

In the darkness, none of the men in black used regular white lights. Occasionally they would flash on a low-powered, low-signature red light, but only for a moment. In the empty field, there was too much risk of strangers noticing.

They had been doing this for years and hadn’t been caught.

One man spoke among the group. “Leave a souvenir for the conspiracy theorists.”

The others nodded and as they dragged a dozen carcasses off the field, they left one lying in the dried grass.

One man pulled a small butane-lighter-like device and burned a brand into the carcass. He worked from memory, knowing which ranch they were on.

The rest of the team took out folding rakes and went over the entirety of the field before returning to the helicopter. The branding artist backed his way to the helicopter, obscuring his tracks, leaving no trace that anyone was ever there. The long, padded skids of the transport chopper rose from a patch of hard, rocky soil and sparse grass leaving little clue of the vehicle’s presence.

The presence of the gutted cow would obfuscate the situation handily. No one would suspect their smuggling ring, in business across several decades, was in operation. Not when investigators were hampered by crackpot theorists who blamed slaughtered cattle on aliens or top-secret Army surgical teams testing surgical lasers. The truth was at once mundane and would shock the world should it ever get out.

But the men in black, as they left the gutted, cauterized corpse in the field, wouldn’t be responsible for that leak in secrecy.

The dark helicopter rose into the Utah night, its Kevlar hull minimizing its radar signature to that of a sparrow, sideways speakers reflecting the sound of the rotors at a right angle to the original racket to dampen the noise to a thrumming whisper. The stealth bird swung lazily back toward its home base.

It was business as usual.

The Gulf of Thailand, twenty miles out of Pattaya

It was business as usual for Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner, as Jack Grimaldi raced Dragon Slayer low over the Gulf of Thailand, so low that the sea spray pelted the windshield. The high-tech combat helicopter was loaded to the gills with electronics and weaponry to give Bolan the kind of edge he needed when fighting impossible odds. The war bird had been designed specifically for the soldier’s crusade against the forces of evil. With encrypted communications, wireless satellite computer links and sensors that could pick up anything across the spectrum, Dragon Slayer could find almost any target. Laden with rocket and grenade launchers, and the awesome .50-caliber GECAL multibarreled machine gun, the helicopter could destroy even a small column of tanks.

Grimaldi held them low over the water, about five feet between the belly of the sleek bird and the tops of the tallest waves. With speakers that reflected the sound of the bird’s own rotor slap at ninety-degree angles to the original sound, the normal thunder and roar of the helicopter was muffled to little more than a low hum. This was a stealth insertion on a freighter loaded with contraband from Thailand.