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      When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

      —Edmund Burke

      1729–1797

      Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

      Some forms of evil are more obvious than others. My task—and that of my associates—is to take on all comers until the puppetmaster is exposed. Then I’ll mete out my brand of justice—hell on Earth.

      —Mack Bolan

      CONTENTS

      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

      CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

      CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

      CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

      CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

      EPILOGUE

      CHAPTER ONE

      Tijuana, Mexico

      The three-car prisoner caravan wended its way through the potholed backstreets. Bolan rode shotgun in an unmarked, armored Bronco. It was 4:00 a.m., and the Tijuana back alleys still bustled in a sloggy way with drunken, bleary-eyed tourists either looking for a last, ugliest bit of action or staggering away from it. The dens of sin didn’t bother to promote themselves with neon lights or pamphlet-waving hawkers pimping strip shows as on the main strip. Displaying the wares was frivolous excess at this time of night and in this part of town. It was old school Tijuana—graffitied brown adobe walls, an occasional bare bulb and small, dark doorways. If you were here and had money, you had already picked your perversion. You just walked through a door and the wares found you.

      Bolan glanced back at “the package.”

      Prisoner Cuauhtemoc “Cuah” Nigris wasn’t a happy man. Nigris was the last of the “Baja Barbacoas,” a quartet of Mexican cartel contract killers who specialized in kidnapping their victims and slow-roasting them alive in a traditional Mexican open pit barbeque covered with maguey agave leaves. The fact that a man who had terrorized the Baja Peninsula from Tijuana to Cabo San Lucas, and was rumored to have eaten parts of his victims, had been reduced to the shivering cold sweats was cause for concern. Then again, all three of Cuah’s fellow accomplices had been caught, and despite the best efforts of the Mexican authorities, the three had been shot, poisoned and garroted while in custody, and adding insult to injury, they had all had their heads removed at some point before they went into the ground. Nigris was the last of his culinary killing quartet and, in desperation, had broken the cartel code of silence. He agreed to spill everything he knew about anything and everybody if they would only extradite him to the perceived safety of the United States.

      Nigris flinched under Bolan’s scrutiny.

      Babysitting was one of Bolan’s least favorite activities, particularly when the mark was a torturer and cannibal, but the powers that be in the Justice Department wanted Nigris, and they wanted him badly. He was a potential goldmine of information. Three of the four were dead. The Justice Department wanted some life insurance for Nigris and Hal Brognola had asked Mack Bolan to be the man’s personal policy.

      Bolan sized up the policyholder.

      Cuah Nigris was a light heavyweight in size and stature. Gang tattoos crawled over most exposed surfaces of his body, including his shaved head. His almond-shaped eyes revealed his Aztec heritage, and at the moment they were flared wide in fear as he sat shackled hand and foot in the back of the SUV.

      Policía Federal Preventiva agent Majandro “Mole” LeCaesar sat next to him. The PFP agent was armed and armored and wearing black battle fatigues. His dark skin and brownish-red Afro betrayed a lot of African blood, and “Mole,” the national chocolate sauce of Mexico, was a nickname he wore with pride. Bolan had liked the man immediately. LeCaesar in return regarded the mysterious American with the gravest of suspicion. It was a sign of how desperate things were getting that the PFP would allow an agent to go dark on an American prisoner transfer. LeCaesar kept the muzzle of his MP-5 jammed into Nigris’s ribs and his eyes on the streets.

      Bolan turned his attention to Agent Smiley.

      It wasn’t the most onerous task in the world.

      Drug Enforcement Administration agent Cambrianna “Bree” Smiley was short and dark with big brown eyes, big cheekbones, big lips and pretty much a big everything packed into a small frame. She was a woman who looked good in body armor. The words Mexican firecracker came to mind except for the fact that she was Irish and happened to tan well. Just about every national law enforcement and intelligence agency in the world kept a few lookers on the roster. Certain situations worked best with a beautiful woman on the team, but Smiley was more than window dressing. She had done a tour in Afghanistan in 2007 with the DEA’s Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams, or FAST, and Bree Smiley won a reputation as a problem solver.

      And in fact there was a significant problem on the U.S. border with Mexico. A problem so bad the President of the United States had turned Mack Bolan onto it, as well. Bolan was used to being an enigma to federal agents and their not liking it. Smiley was taking it better than most. She wouldn’t admit it, but things had gotten spooky lately and she was secretly pleased to have the backup. Agent Smiley gave Bolan a lopsided grin without taking her eyes off the road. “You getting a good look, Blue Eyes?”

      “Something is about to go down,” Bolan said.

      “Impossible.” Smiley shook her head while constantly scanning the road ahead. “I planned this transfer. We sent out the decoy Cuah at 7:00 a.m. yesterday, under guard like he was the Mexican president himself. Our decoy is a ringer, and he reached the border and was delivered into custody without a hitch. No one knows about tonight’s little excursion except people I trust with my life, and that includes Mole. No one knows our route except me, and if we’re