Don Pendleton: China White

NARCO BREAKDOWN

The drug syndicate running the heroin pipeline from the Golden Crescent of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan crosses a line when it begins hijacking the narco-traffic markets controlled by Asia’s Triads. When the ensuing turf war claims lives on America’s streets, Mack Bolan prepares to do battle—without official sanction. The Executioner is willing to do or die to prevent a bloodbath on U.S. soil.

In a retaliatory strike, Bolan hits New York’s Chinatown, where a scorched earth message ignites fear and uncertainty. Exactly as planned. Now all he has to do is follow the panicked trail to the big predators across the ocean in France and Hong Kong. As his relentless pursuit puts a savage enemy on the defensive, the Executioner homes in for the kill. To cripple both factions, he must successfully play the rivals off each other. Victory means both cartels go down in flames.

The HE grenade blew the door off its hinges

As the triad overlord sprawled across a sofa, bleeding from a gash below his hairline, he fumbled in vain for the semiauto pistols he’d dropped when he was taken down. He stared up into Mack Bolan’s eyes.

“Who are you?”

“I’m your judgment,” Bolan replied, dropping the grenade launcher and whipping out his pistol, drilling the man with a 9 mm Parabellum round between his arched eyebrows. The overlord sagged and slid off the couch, leaving his final thoughts spread over the upholstery.

“Back out the way we came,” Bolan advised Bizhani, brushing past him on the short run toward the service stairs. He now had the Steyr AUG in hand, prepared to greet gunners waiting on the flights below.

Job done, and all that remained now was for the Executioner to get out of here. Alive.

China White

Don Pendleton

Justice should remove the bandage from her eyes long enough to distinguish between the vicious and the unfortunate.

—Robert Ingersoll, 1833–1899

My eyes are clear. I recognize the guilty. They have judged themselves.

—Mack Bolan

For Staff Sergeant Clinton Romesha, U.S. Army

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

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Confucius Plaza, New York City

Tommy Mu was starting to get nervous. He was due on Mott Street, at the Lucky Dragon, in ten minutes, and he wasn’t sure that he could make it. Being late was bad, particularly with the product he was carrying. It could mean punishment.

But getting killed along the way was worse.

He had been followed from the pickup, though he hadn’t seen the stalkers on his tail until his taxi had crossed Henry Street and rolled into Chinatown. He had begun to let his guard down, relaxing as he made it back to his home turf, and then he’d spotted it: a jet-black SUV he’d glimpsed before, while he was getting in the cab, and hadn’t thought to watch for on the ride downtown.

Stupid.

He should have paid closer attention, should have known there might be watchers, what with all the other crazy shit that had been going on the past few weeks. The SUV’s windshield was tinted just enough that Mu couldn’t make out who was trailing him, but he felt safe in ruling out the DEA. If they’d been on his case, they would have swooped in at the pickup, grabbing him with the product, his supplier with the cash he’d handed over. Get the whole damn ball of wax.

No. This was someone else.

Which only made it worse.

If he’d been busted, Mu could have called his lawyer, posted bail and started thinking about where to run and hide in lieu of facing trial. But these weren’t cops. And that meant, if they took him in, the odds of him coming back were nil. He might wind up in the East River, or he might just disappear.

Whatever. Dead was dead, and Mu wasn’t ready for it.

So he’d told the cabbie that he’d changed his mind about going to Mott Street. He had the hack stop at Confucius Square, where there were people all around, making a snatch more hazardous.

Back in the old days, Mu understood, New Yorkers might have stood and watched him be slaughtered on the street without lifting a hand or bothering to call for help. These days, post–9/11, things were different. Someone would definitely call the cops, and likely film the snatch squad on his or her cell phone at the same time. Now that he was back in Chinatown, someone might even recognize him and call Jimmy Wen.

Not that his boys could reach the scene in time.

The good news: Mu had his equalizer with him, just as always. He preferred the SIG SAUER Mosquito, light and fast, packing ten .22-caliber Long Rifle rounds, its muzzle threaded for attaching a suppressor if he had a special job to do. It wouldn’t knock a man down from a block away, but it would kill him, hell yeah, if you hit him in the right spots, and it didn’t have the shocking recoil of a larger caliber.

The question: would he have a chance to use it if the stalkers moved on him?

The plan: cross Bowery westbound and walk against Bayard Street’s one-way traffic, so the hunters couldn’t follow him. Make them drop down to Pell and try to keep up with him, wondering the whole time if they’d come this far to lose him altogether.

Psy-war, man, he thought. Just hope it works.

If not...

He made the move; dodged into traffic, barely checking left or right, and made it to the other side intact.

So far, so good.

* * *

“YOU’RE LOSING HIM,” Ahmad Taraki growled.

“What can I do?” Babur Kazimi asked him from the driver’s seat. “You see the one-way sign.”

“Turn that way!” Taraki shouted, then cursed with feeling.

He pointed south, toward Pell Street, one-way westbound. They could track their pigeon that way, farther into Chinatown, and pick him up on Mott Street when he tried to cross.

“You sure?” Daoud Rashad asked from the backseat. “He could go some other way or—”

Furious and nearly shouting now, Taraki told his driver, “Do as you are told!”

Kazimi made the turn, horns blaring at them, and Taraki gave them all the finger. He wished he could have sprayed them with the AK-105 he was carrying and shut them up forever. That would be a satisfying moment, but he couldn’t spare the time, much less risk drawing in police before his job was done.

Pell Street was half the length of Bayard and dead-ended into Mott. Taraki had a fair idea of where his boy was going, and their task would be to cut him off before he got there, thus avoiding any payback from his homeboys. It was meant to be a simple job, decisive, not a running firefight through the streets.

“Hurry!” he snapped at Kazimi. “If you let him get away, it’s your ass.”

“Two more minutes,” the driver answered. “But I can’t stop him from going someplace else.”

“Then pray he doesn’t, for your own sake,” Taraki said.

As if God gave a damn whether they caught the man or not.

But Wasef Kamran cared. And if Taraki failed him, there would certainly be hell to pay.

* * *

TOMMY MU FELT BETTER; thought he might have made it after all. Some of the people he passed on Bayard Street were likely wondering why he’d been running past them, jostling a couple here and there, but no one challenged him. They knew better, could recognize him by his haircut, clothes and haste as someone dangerous. They’d be thinking he wasn’t a person to mess with, and their instincts were correct.