www.mirabooks.co.uk

      Special thanks and acknowledgment to Doug Wojtowicz for his contribution to this work.

      Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.

      —Samuel Johnson 1709–1784

      I’ve seen too many men who have wrapped themselves in the cloak of false patriotism to excuse their bloodlust and greed. I will not shirk my duty to bring my full weight to bear upon them.

      —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.

      Contents

      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

      Prologue

      The man in black threaded the sound suppressor onto the end of his Beretta, set the safety and holstered the gun before turning his attention to the key weapon for this mission. The Beretta M-59 rifle was a paratrooper model, with a metal folding stock. Capable of precision accurate single-shot or devastating full-auto fire, its 7.62 mm rounds could slice through a human body with ease. There was a round in the chamber and the magazine was full.

      He was here, in the heart of enemy territory to take out Mahmoud Amanijad. The Muslim firebrand was a vocal opponent of the United States government’s procedures in dealing with the terrorist threat that the man had sworn his life to oppose. Amanijad, speaking before the packed audience of fellow fanatics, had been behind a plot to unleash a wave of unholy destruction through the U.S.

      The crusader pushed off the safety on the Beretta rifle, setting the selector to single shot, lining up on the target’s forehead.

      Deep in enemy territory, surrounded by jack-booted, heavily armed thugs in the service of the radical, reactionary government, the lone warrior would need every ounce of firepower to escape the scene unscathed, but not before he sent a message to the enemies of freedom and justice everywhere.

      The crowd was on its feet, cheering and applauding the divisive Amanijad, its combined voice and racket shaking the auditorium like an artillery barrage.

      The dark-clad sharpshooter partly let out his breath, holding in half as he steadied the crosshairs on the center of Amanijad’s black-bearded face.

      “Too long has America lashed out blindly for the sake of the nebulous concept of national security,” Amanijad began his speech, the crowd’s tumultuous response to his arrival on stage fading quickly so that his words could be heard. “In their insane efforts to protect the needs of their money-grubbing backers, they rob the people of their rights and their voice. We are here now to show them that we will not be silenced!”

      It was a planned break in the speech. The crowd, as if on cue, exploded into a cacophony of cheers. It was exactly what the sharpshooter had been waiting for. The roar of the crowd at its crescendo would drown out the muffled crack of his rifle. The marksman milked the trigger of the scoped Beretta and a single 7.62 mm round shot out of the barrel, screaming across the auditorium from the catwalk to the stage.

      The speaker seized up, his handsome, bearded face replaced by horrific gore. Amanijad slumped to the polished hardwood floor in a puddle of blood.

      The sharpshooter watched uniformed thugs race onto the stage. One of them spotted the sniper and pulled his sidearm from a holster.

      The crowd exploded in wild panic.

      The Beretta, switched to full-auto, snarled, and a salvo of rifle slugs stitched through the bodyguard’s rib cage, throwing him across the speaker’s corpse. Other security guards spotted the flaring muzzle-flash of the full-auto rifle, and their hands dropped to their guns. The marksman shifted his aim, tapping off a short burst that ripped the head off a second auditorium gunman. He whirled and raced several feet, pistol-caliber bullets ringing and clanging on the metal railing and grating at his feet.

      The rifleman paused and spun, firing back at the stage, short precision bursts raking two more uniformed shooters. The sniper turned and raced away.

      He sped down the catwalk and kicked open an access door to the roof.

      The blaze of the sun lanced down on him, and he felt as if he’d dived