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      They are dead; but they live in each Patriot’s breast, And their names are engraven on honor’s bright crest.

      —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

       1807–1882

      Every soldier who fights for freedom and justice deserves honor and peace in death. Anyone who threatens this right will have to answer to me.

      —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

      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

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      1

      Safed Koh Range, Afghanistan-Pakistan Border

      Fifty miles southeast of the Afghanistan capital of Kabul, Mack Bolan steeled himself against the harsh, cold wind that swept up through the moonlit mountains, stirring a clot of low-hanging clouds that partially obscured the steep, jagged slopes stretching before him. He was nearly ten thousand feet above sea level, positioned along a battle-scarred ridgeline just below the highest peak in this stretch of the Hindu Kush, lying prone on a bed of pine needles. Under better conditions, he would have had a clear view of the trails below, along which, according to all available intel, Taliban forces would most likely attempt to slip into the country from covert bases in the tribal lands of neighboring Pakistan.

      The intermittent cloud cover made this an ideal night for the terrorists to make their move. To tempt them farther into the open, an attractive bait had been set two miles to the north, atop a plateau several thousand feet below where Bolan held his vigil. There, U.S. and NATO forces had begun to erect a new base for their joint military operations. It was a familiar modus operandi for the Taliban to take advantage of such situations, staging predawn raids in hopes of capitalizing on uncompleted fortifications manned by security personnel not yet acclimated to their new surroundings.

      In this case, however, the half-built site was merely a red herring. Once the Taliban crossed the border and closed in on its target, their advance would bring them into the crosshairs of a half-dozen Special Ops teams lying in wait at key points along every known access route. Bolan was one of those who would likely sound the first alarm. If he had his way, by the time the ambush was underway, he would have already made his way downhill to lend a hand in helping crush those from whose ranks America had been subjected to the moment of infamy now known, with grim simplicity, as 9/11. Granted, it would take more than one such victory to eradicate the black-turbanned sect once and for all, but after weeks of making little headway against the terrorists, both U.S. and NATO forces were anxious to boost their morale and at least match the recent success of their host confederates, the Afghan National Army.

      The Executioner had come to Afghanistan intent on a solo mission against the Taliban, but once apprised of plans for the ambush—which Pentagon spin doctors had optimistically christened Operation Rat Trap—Bolan had quickly realized that prowling alone through the mountains would more likely draw friendly fire from the commando squads than bring him face-to-face with the enemy. He’d grudgingly allowed himself to be thrown into the established mix, and when he’d set out for his lofty surveillance post, it had been in the company of a recon specialist from the Army’s 25th Infantry Division deployed at Bagram Air Base.

      The man at his side, as the stakeout dragged into its third hour, was Captain Howard “Howitzer” O’Brien, a beefy, gray-haired veteran halfway through his third tour of duty in Afghanistan. Prior to that, the Cleveland native had served in the Gulf War, and his cumulative experience had brought with it a hardened cynicism surpassed only by the officer’s apparently incessant need to vent his notions as to how the U.S. military brain trust had mismanaged both conflicts.

      “Y’know, if we’d done things right from the get-go, we wouldn’t be stuck here doing this kinda