Don Pendleton - Lethal Compound

The dogs and trackers came behind them. Men on horseback soon followed. Bolan watched them from behind cover. He clicked his radio. “Piet, what have you got up front?”

“Armed men, platoon strength,” Piet said.

Bolan glanced at Gilad. “Anything?”

Gilad and the guide spoke in whispered Russian. Gilad shook his head. “He says he doesn’t know who these guys are. He says despite their clothes they are not Tajik.”

Bolan surveyed their trackers. “Piet, how are the guys ahead of us armed?”

“It’s all Russian kit.”

“My guys are all carrying Chinese weapons,” Bolan said and clicked his radio. “Eckhart, you there?”

“I copy, Coop.”

“I think the people in front and behind are two different groups.”

Eckhart wasn’t panicking yet but he was clearly agitated. “What are you saying, Coop?”

“I’ve got a theory these guys have two different agendas.” Bolan lowered his binoculars and looked at the ex-Ranger. “I say we introduce them and watch what happens.”

The Executioner ®

www.mirabooks.co.uk

He who seizes on the moment, he is the right man.

—Johann Goethe

1749–1832

Faust

When the enemy attacks, my only option is to seize whatever opportunity comes my way.

—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

Chapter 18

Atascadero, California

Gary Manning sighed as he sat in the sniper-hide and scanned the trees with his night-vision binoculars. “I hate babysitting jobs,” he grumbled.

Mack Bolan silently agreed. He scanned the surrounding central California oak forest. Body-guarding and babysitting were nearly synonymous in his book. You waited for the enemy to do something and then reacted to it. That was a recipe for disaster as the reaction often ended up happening after the damage was done. The man known as the Executioner was proactive. He believed in getting to the enemy before they could act.

“And babysitting billionaires?” Manning continued. “What’s up with that?”

“He likes hunting.” Bolan countered. “He can’t be all bad.”

Manning grunted noncommittally. The big Canadian was an avid hunter himself and had personally whiled away many a happy hour of his free time hunting the wild hogs that descended on the ranches, farms and wineries of California like a plague of porcine locusts every year. Their rooting created significant erosion damage to the hillsides every year. They voraciously ate any crop they came across.

As a result, pig-hunting season in California was a year-round proposition. Even with no restrictions on hunting them, the wild boar were winning.

Their population continued to increase. Their range continued to expand. Trophy-size hogs were everywhere.

So were men with rifles.

It was the perfect opportunity to stage a hunting “accident.” The enemy, whoever they were, could have a hundred snipers in the area armed with high-powered rifles with high-powered optics; all sneaking through the woods wearing camouflage and no one in local law enforcement would bat an eye.

Bolan knew Manning would love to be hunting the big game but they had a job to do. He swung his sights onto the cabin. It was made of logs but what it was in reality was a three-story log mansion with guest wings, servants’ quarters, a wine cellar and a fully equipped and domed astronomy observatory.

The net of the tennis court had been taken down and Philip Eckhart’s helicopter was parked on it.

Eckhart was a billionaire, and three very real attempts had recently been made on his life. Eckhart had decided to continue on with his anything but routine life, including his hunting trip. He had, however, stepped up security. Bolan knew that everything within a hundred-yard radius of the lodge was under video surveillance. The lodge grounds had a web of infrared laser motion detectors. Eight armed men wearing maroon Eckhart Endeavors windbreakers patrolled the grounds in two-man teams. Each team patrolled with a large guard dog. Another half-dozen security men were inside the house, checking security feeds and carrying pistols in concealment holsters.

Bolan frowned as Eckhart and a guest walked past a huge, open, brightly lit, second-story window. The man he watched was unremarkable to look at. He might be a billionaire but he was still wearing the same scuffed and stained khaki pants and flannel shirt from the dawn and dusk hunts of the day. Several of his companions had bagged pigs that were being roasted on huge spits in the backyard. Eckhart had held off on his own shots. It seemed he was waiting for a prize-winner.

A look of approval ghosted across Bolan’s face as Eckhart’s personal bodyguard shadowed the two men a few discreet steps behind. The man wasn’t very tall but his shoulders were broad, he stood ramrod-straight and projected like he was a six footer. He wore khaki shorts and a company polo shirt that had been tailored to fit his physique. Unlike the rest of the security detail he made no effort to hide the Browning 9 mm automatic or the thirteen-inch khukri dagger he wore on his belt.

Eckhart had hired himself a Gurkha from Gurkha Security Limited.

The man missed nothing. His brows bunched with obvious concern as his charge walked past the window. It was clear the bodyguard had stopped trying to advise Eckhart on how to live to see another day. Instead the man had made himself Eckhart’s shadow. The bodyguard gazed out the window in passing and Bolan could almost feel the former British soldier searching for him in the dark.

“Interesting,” Manning remarked.

Phillip Eckhart was an interesting guy. He had grown up unremarkably in the San Luis Obispo area. Hunting and fishing had taken up most of his time to the detriment of most other things in his life. Two years of junior college had barely squeaked him into the California Polytechnical Institute, but once there he had excelled, graduating magna cum laude in computer science with a minor in archaeology, a subject that had remained a passion in his life. Eckhart had never invented anything. What he had excelled at was looking at something and figuring out a way to make it better. He’d started working in Silicon Valley for established companies. Eventually he started his own company, went public, sold it and was a millionaire at the age of thirty-five. He had taken the profits and started another company, and then another and another. Then he started buying other, well-established businesses and made them work better. Before long he was a billionaire. His umbrella company was Eckhart Endeavors. Through that he looked around, found things that interested him and engaged in fascinating endeavors that made stupendous profits. Wall Street constantly held its breath waiting to see what he would do next.