Don Pendleton: Poison Justice

The Executioner rolled out of the shadows, Beretta up and chugging

Bolan made quick work of putting them in their resting place. He closed the lid on the coffin and leathered the Beretta. Retreating, he checked the parking lot. Before coming in, the soldier had considered fixing the fleet of fancy wheels with plastic explosives, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. This was a commercial and residential neighborhood and no one on the block needed to pay indirectly for the crimes of these savages by finding their homes and businesses pummeled and damaged by raining debris.

Melting into the deeper shadows of the alley, Bolan determined that for all enemies concerned, reality was only just beginning to heat up.

MACK BOLAN®

The Executioner

#241 Evil Reborn

#242 Doomsday Conspiracy

#243 Assault Reflex

#244 Judas Kill

#245 Virtual Destruction

#246 Blood of the Earth

#247 Black Dawn Rising

#248 Rolling Death

#249 Shadow Target

#250 Warning Shot

#251 Kill Radius

#252 Death Line

#253 Risk Factor

#254 Chill Effect

#255 War Bird

#256 Point of Impact

#257 Precision Play

#258 Target Lock

#259 Nightfire

#260 Dayhunt

#261 Dawnkill

#262 Trigger Point

#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

Poison Justice

Don Pendleton

Even in theory the gas mask is a dreadful thing. It stands for one’s first flash of insight into man’s measureless malignity against man.

—Reginald Farrer 1880–1920

The Void of War

I have seen the terrible result of greed and betrayal. I have seen the innocent poisoned by evil. It is my duty to provide those victims with justice.

—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.

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

Epilogue

The future belonged to the sociopath.

Spoken by his predecessor—before the black magic baton for head of Special Action Division was passed on to him—Richard Grogen recalled the statement for reasons that pertained to more than his own world. Cradling his HK MP-5 subgun with laser sight and sound suppressor, he believed there was no hidden meaning in the cryptic statement, no warning prophecy. Aware his hold on power was tenuous, at best, he knew both professional and personal fate hedged on the whims and paranoid myopia of faceless powerful shadow men, any of whom called the shots from about three thousand miles east. And, like him, they had more to lose than just careers, if the truth about their black project leaked out for public devouring or congressional cannibalizing. No crystal ball gazing was needed for Grogen to know phantoms would arise in the middle of some future midnight. They would come, shipped out of nowhere to make sure he, too, took all his secrets with him to an unmarked desert grave.

Given what he knew about Project Light Year, aware of the nature of the beast he was chained to, Grogen supposed they believed his fate was inevitable. But, where there was a will to fight, nothing was ever carved in stone. If he was going to retire, it would be on his terms.

Starting now.

He peered ahead into the darkness, absorbing the jounce and pitch of the Hummer from the shotgun seat as it rolled along at a scorpion’s pace, wheels catching ruts and furrows, here and there, in the dirt track. The future was somewhere ahead in the utter blackness, but he’d be damned if he could find any sign of life, beyond the combined fanning glow of headlights from the trailing vehicles. The travel brochures claimed Nevada trooped in some thirty million visitors a year, ranking it ahead of Orlando, Florida, as the country’s number-one tourist mecca. Naturally, Vegas, Reno and Tahoe gobbled up the lion’s share of human life. But out here, Grogen thought, pushing for the Arizona border, where giant prehistoric reptiles, mastodons and woolly mammoths once trod, he might as well be on another planet.

This turf was rumored to have seen more visitors of extraterrestrial origin than human. A younger Grogen, he thought, the Green Beret with a wife and kids to consider—all of whom had abandoned his ship in recent years—would have scoffed it off as so much fantastic rubbish fabricated by local desert rats and freelancing journalists broke, hungry and eager for a sensational story.

He’d heard the wild tales from Area 51—recently emptied of men and material. But, relocated to his new classified base of operations, these days he could be sure they were building—and hiding—more than just the prototype fighter jet for the next generation. And after bearing recent eyewitness to an event he could not comprehend in earthly terms, he began to believe the truth was, indeed, stranger than any fiction.