Don Pendleton - Deadly Contact

His eyes were wide with a mix of anger and disbelief that his team had been taken down so swiftly.

Bolan hit him with a savage volley that cut the man down like straw in the wind, dumping his tattered and bleeding body on the ground.

The last echo of autofire drifted off into the trees. Wind rattled the brittle foliage, dislodging hard crusts of snow from the branches. Bolan’s boots crunched over the ground layer as he moved from man to man, checking for signs of life and moving weapons clear. He had counted his targets and they were all down.

The Executioner’s shots had been delivered with total accuracy.

The Executioner

#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

#339 Deadly Contact

Deadly Contact

Don Pendleton

Go into emptiness, strike voids, bypass what he defends, hit him where he does not expect you.

—Ts’ao Ts’ao, 155–220 A.D.

When I plan a mission I make sure my enemies will never know what hit them.

—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

Bosnia, 1995

The sharp light of morning was accompanied by a chill appropriate to the mood of the day. A fine mist rained over the wooded terrain, the cold drizzle building until it slipped from the green leaves of the trees. It dripped onto the bared heads of the tight group shuffling forward from the truck that had brought them to this place. Five men and a single woman. They walked with the heavy tread of individuals aware of their fate, unable to do anything to alter it, yet clinging to some vague hope there might be some last minute reprieve.

They were surrounded by a three-man armed escort—men clad in better clothing than their captives. While the six wore ordinary dress, the escorts were comfortable in weatherproof coats and hats. No one spoke. There was no point. Anything that had been worth saying was in the past. It was time for closure.

Within the group, only one of them allowed emotions to show. One of the men sobbed quietly, his head down so that his chin rested on his chest. His tears ran down his face and merged with the rain-soaked material of his shirt. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of the crumpled, stained jacket he wore. Once that jacket had been an expensive item from his wardrobe. Now it showed the effects of his prolonged incarceration. It had a number of tears in the fine material, and some of the dark stains were from his own blood. He knew he was about to die. He wanted it to be different, but the line that prevented that had been crossed many days ago. He had chosen his side, as had the others in the group, and it had been the wrong side. He was about to pay the price for his decision, which in his heart he still defended. He knew the people controlling his destiny were evil. They were men who saw personal aggrandizement as their right, contrary to the responsibility they carried for the countries they served. A defiant resistance to those illegal activities had been the catalyst for the action taking place in this isolated landscape.

Someone rapped out a harsh command, and the group was herded to a stop in a clearing in the wooded terrain. A deep pit had been dug. The dark mounds of extracted earth edged three sides of the pit, glistening in the rain. Already a thin layer of water had pooled in the bottom of the pit. The armed escorts lined up behind the six, the one who had given the command glancing to his right at a shadowy gathering of men standing just within the tree line. One of these men stepped forward, into the light. A big man, with a hard-boned face wet with rain. He was bareheaded, his thick black hair lay tight against his skull. He exhibited no remorse as he faced the six.

“This was not inevitable,” he said. “You chose your own fate by refusing to join us.”

The woman turned to look him in the eye. One side of her attractive face still bore the discoloration that was the result of a severe beating.