Don Pendleton: Assault Force

Bolan had a grim idea of what he would find

Anger pumped in rhythm to the beating of his heart. Sobbing and soft voices reached his ears, followed by gruff demands for silence. Then he heard Katerina Muscovky quietly calling to him as he struggled to sit up. The real world of hooded gunmen and hostages came into slow focus.

His first thought was to free himself and strike back. How to do that was a damn good question that presented no ready answers. The others might have been clinging to some faint hope of rescue or release, but Bolan knew from experience what their captors were capable of doing.

Looking at the cameras on tripods, he knew he’d better find a solution fast—before the filmed executions began.

MACK BOLAN ®

The Executioner

#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

#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

Assault Force

Don Pendleton

Heroes as great have died, and yet shall fall.

—Homer, c1000 B.C.

Iliad

Big screen heroes are larger than life. Real-life heroes often go unnoticed.

—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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

He stepped onto the wide, white-marbled path, leaving the revelry of the withering beach crowd behind as shadows lengthened across the Mediterranean. The sound of the gentle lap of waves faded the deeper he forged into the army of guests and locals marching for the bars, restaurants and discos. He considered—despite some anticipated alteration in professional standards—that he was still in a class all by himself. Come what may, he was nothing less than a superman in black ops, the Entity, to be more precise, as he so often thought of himself. He was above the laws of man and whatever gods they worshiped. Fear God? Respect Man? Perish the absurd thought.

Beyond professional pride and infinite confidence in his own lethal skills, he knew his continued existence depended on his ability to remain a nameless, faceless specter. Positive identification, after all, could mean sudden death.

Which was why he never left whatever his lair of the moment without some bogus credentials. Depending on the situation, he was FBI Special Agent Henry Jarrod, Pierre DeJaureaux of Interpol or at present, Jarrod Harmon, head of security for the American Embassy in Spain, which in special ops and intelligence circles translated CIA. A chameleon walking a tightrope, for damn sure, he never moved among prey or predators without the 9 mm Browning Hi-Power stowed in shoulder rigging.

He took his time strolling up the low incline, apparently sightseeing, but grimly aware the clock was winding down for the big event. The roving traffic, he noted with keen fondness, was mostly stunning females, two, maybe three beauties per man. European, African or Asian, it was a rainbow of nubile flesh, begging to be devoured, barely concealed in sheer wraparounds for cocktail hour, a thong bikini, here and there, to really get his pulse pounding. Feeling invincible in his own tanned war hide, hefting the heavy nylon duffel bag, he dismissed the men as standard nonthreatening Eurotrash with more money than spine. He let his eyes fill behind the mirrored shades with fleeting fantasies of women in the prayer position. And who knew? he thought, when the time came…

Hell, when it began they would hit their knees, all of them, make no mistake.

Business first, he told himself, and felt his lust spiral down toward a dark pit of churning anger and resentment as he heard women giggle over the spray and hiss of fountains, hidden as they were in private cubbyholes off to the sides in this tunnel of transplanted jungle Eden. Still, the heavenly fragrance of all this sun-bronzed perfumed cream and hairspray was a heady mix in his nose. It seemed to swell the air, drawing him, in fact, toward destiny as he closed on a pool near football field dimensions—a watery playground with all the posh trimmings of fountains, palm trees, custom hot tubs, with scores of buxom bunnies in skintight one-pieces clacking along on high heels to keep the drinks flowing.

Let the good times roll.

Heaven was soon to be set on fire.

A check of his Rolex watch indicated he was minutes late after shoring up eleventh-hour details. But the man would keep, if he was as brazen and committed as his track record declared, and wished to see his own dream come true.