Fatal Combat

The Executioner charged from the car, a gun in each hand

To survive against such overwhelming odds required movement—he would have to run the risk of seeking higher ground.

Holstering the Desert Eagle but keeping hold of his Beretta, Bolan grabbed the mirror extending from the rear corner of the van and pulled himself to the roof of the vehicle, flattening himself against it.

The gunmen would have his range in seconds. He drew his Desert Eagle once more, extended his arms out to each side, and began shooting from the roof of the van. The fusillade pinned the gunmen nearest to the van, striking and wounding some of them, killing still others. But there were more assassins than the soldier had realized.

The cargo van shook beneath him. Men were climbing inside. They would no doubt try to shoot him through the roof.

Bolan beat them to it. Holstering the Beretta and swapping magazines in the Desert Eagle, he aimed at the roof of the van and started pulling the trigger, walking the shots in an ever-widening pattern. Men screamed below him as bodies hit the floor of the vehicle.

He flattened himself again and spun around, shooting left and right, taking running gunmen this way and that.

It was time to move.

Fatal Combat

The Executioner^®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, / He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.

—William Shakespeare

1564–1616

There are those who think that killing is a game. There are men who believe the weapons in their hands make them the predators. But the sharpest weapon is the human mind…and the game, when hunting predators, has no rules.

—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

1

The morning air held a tang of moisture that beaded on the windshield as the sun hit it, chasing the crisp October dawn as a pollution-laden haze took its place. Three truant high school kids paused on the sidewalk not far from the parked car, craning their necks for a better look. A uniformed Detroit police officer shooed them away, muttering something about getting to school, and the teens shot back cheerful profanities as they made themselves scarce. The cop, shaking his head, turned back to the chalk outline visible among the milling crime scene team.

There was blood everywhere.

The dried blood, thicker and darker than most civilians would or could imagine, had washed across the crags of the asphalt in an impossibly wide bloom that partially obscured the chalk outline. Solemn figures were loading the zippered body bag in the back of the medical examiner’s van. They had seen many corpses; they would be hardened to all but the most brutal of deaths.

Their grim expressions confirmed what the crimson lake of human blood had already told the man behind the wheel.

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, dropped the window on the driver’s side of the rented Dodge Charger. He put his left hand on the steering wheel and leaned forward for a better look. In his right hand, resting on his leg, was a custom-tuned Beretta 93-R machine pistol.

Satisfied with what he could see from his vantage point, Bolan turned his attention to the weapon. He ejected the well-traveled pistol’s 20-round magazine and racked the slide, catching the loose round in his palm. Then he reloaded the round, seated it and racked the slide again, nudging the weapon’s selector switch and replacing it in the leather shoulder holster he wore under his three-quarter-length black leather coat. The coat concealed both the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle he wore inside his waistband in a Kydex holster and the double-edged Sting knife he carried in a matching sheath, also in his waistband, behind his left hip, angled for a draw with either hand.

On the seat next to Bolan was an olive-drab canvas war bag. The bag contained a variety of items and gear, including spare magazines and ammunition, grenades, other explosives, and various sundry combat essentials. The Executioner had spent too many years fighting his war, often with very little backup, to walk into the field underprepared. He had pared down his standard mission load-out over that time to make sure he had anticipated every need that could be foreseen. In combat, of course, not all scenarios could be predicted. Still, he was as prepared before fact as was realistic for a soldier to be. The rest was adaptability, flexibility and will.

Even as his mind turned these thoughts over in his head, the Executioner examined the problem before him. The clinical part of his brain filed the data of his senses—the inordinate quantity of blood, the bodily damage needed to produce it, and the public location of the body. These were indicators of the predator who had taken this kill. Another man might call them clues. Bolan was no detective, but he was an expert in predators. He was a soldier and a hunter.

One of the locals, who wore an ill-fitting blazer rather than a uniform, detached himself from the crowd working the crime scene. He jogged across the blocked street with a manila folder in one hand. Bolan resisted the urge to shake his head. His contact at Stony Man Farm had told him the locals would, on orders through channels, assign to him a liaison within the Detroit PD. That liaison turned out to be one Adam Davis, newly minted detective. The young man wasn’t a rookie, but according to his files he hadn’t had the time to put much distance between himself and that tag before earning his way out of his uniform.

Davis got into the passenger seat at Bolan’s gesture, closing the door behind him and thrusting a file folder at Bolan.

“Agent Cooper,” he said. “This is everything so far. They’re still working up some of the details.”

Matt Cooper was the name on Bolan’s Justice Department credentials. He had used the alias often enough that the Cooper cover identity had an impressive history and dossier of its own. Any curious local poking through law-enforcement files would find sufficient detail to compel cooperation with the mysterious agent, whose precise responsibilities in this matter had purposely been left vague.

Bolan took the folder from Davis’s hand, watching the man flinch as if he expected the agent to take a few fingers with him. Bolan quashed the urge to shake his head and chuckle. It wouldn’t do to antagonize Davis, whose only crime so far was being intimidated by implied authority. Davis was the most junior detective in a department known for its graft and corruption. Faced with a mysterious governmental operative to whom Davis’s own superiors were required to give cooperation, what else could he think? He’d find his way readily enough. He had that eager, adaptable air to him. Bolan had encountered the type enough times to recognize it.

The folder contained a preliminary field report. It also held a series of slightly smudged color photos, obviously printed on a portable ink-jet unit and handled with haste. Bolan was accustomed to meeting with resistance from local law enforcement, if only because the usual petty jurisdictional squabbles annoyed those through whose territory the Executioner marched. It was refreshing actually to get some cooperation. He wondered for a moment if Hal Brognola had rattled cages on this end of the situation perhaps a bit more loudly than usual.

Certainly the big Fed had sounded more stressed than was normal even for him, when he placed the scrambled phone call to Bolan’s secure satellite phone from Brognola’s Justice Department office near the Potomac. The soldier could picture the man chewing an unlit cigar and sitting in front of the window in his chair deep in Wonderland, a fighting bureaucrat waging wars of intrigue, intimidation and political manipulation that even Bolan could not win alone. Brognola was the director of the Sensitive Operations Group, a counterterrorist unit based at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, and on the other end of his phone was the Man himself, the President of the United States.

“Striker,” Brognola had said, using the soldier’s code name. “Somebody’s cutting up civilians in Detroit.”

Bolan had said nothing for a moment. “I’m listening,” he finally answered.

The big Fed wasted no time. “It’s been going on for a while, now. So far the press has been kept out of it, but that hasn’t been easy, nor can the powers that be contain it any longer. The murders are increasing in frequency and in their public nature. Whoever’s doing it has stopped being careful—it’s as if he or she wants the bodies found.”

“A serial killer?”

“Possibly,” Brognola said. “Officially there are no leads. Unofficially, and very strictly off the record at this point, the Man is concerned that this isn’t a domestic crime at all, but rather a new kind of terrorism.”

“Low budget,” Bolan said. “Low-tech. Inspire fear by making the populace believe no one is safe.”

“Exactly,” Brognola said. “If it is a terrorist group, they’re destabilizing the greater Detroit area by making its citizens believe the general public, individually, is being targeted. It wouldn’t be the first time an international terror ring has used knives to make its bloody business known. The Detroit PD and the FBI have been working to keep this from going off the rails, but they’re out of their depth. There are too many rules, too many bureaucratic hurdles, and no way to find or target the enemy. They simply aren’t equipped to fight this kind of war.”

“But I am,” Bolan said. It was not a question.

“The Man wants you to do what you do, Striker,” Brognola said. “If Detroit is a test case for some new, insidious campaign, you will root it out and destroy it before it goes any further. You’re also working against the clock.”

“How so?”

“The Detroit papers are ready to break the story,” Brognola said, frustration clear in his voice. “The locals, the FBI, and even Justice have been sitting on them over the last two days…but they’re screaming freedom of the press, and honestly, Striker, I can’t blame them. We have it on good authority that they’re breaking the story the night of October 31, in prime time, which means you’re going to have a full-blown panic on your hands before nightfall.”

“Which will make it harder to bring my targets to ground,” Bolan said.

“Yes,” Brognola said. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“I’ll deal with it,” Bolan said.

“Hell of a way to kick off Halloween,” Brognola said. “You’ll have backup among the Detroit PD. I’ll lean on the Feds that way, too, and pull as many strings as I have to if you ruffle any feathers.”

“You’re mixing your metaphors, Hal.”

“Whatever,” Brognola said. “Striker, I know every mission is important. But this is…different. These are innocent people. Ordinary American citizens. They’re being killed for no reason.”

A muscle in Bolan’s jaw worked. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said. “I’ll get them, Hal.”

“Good hunting, Striker.”

“On it. Striker out.”

With those words, Bolan had stowed his phone and made arrangements to travel to Detroit, where his customary gear had already been prepared and was waiting for him with a Stony Man courier. Now, only a few hours after that conversation, he was here, and he was ready.

It was time to begin.

He was no stranger to Detroit, but he did not know the city like a local. He had been assured that Detective Davis was born and bred here. The Farm had transmitted the man’s full dossier to Bolan’s phone while he was in transit. He had reviewed it early that morning.

Bolan turned to give the detective a long, hard look. Davis looked up from the manila folder. He reddened. “Uh…sir? Mister, I mean, Agent Cooper, sir? Is there a problem?”

“There might be,” Bolan said. “Time for a decision, kid.”

“Sir?”

“The department has been instructed to cooperate with me,” Bolan said. “There’s going to come a moment, not very long from now, when you’ll be tempted not to do that.”

“I don’t understand, Agent Cooper.”

Bolan didn’t have time for a lengthy argument. He drew the Beretta 93-R from his shoulder holster and placed it in his lap. Davis glanced at it and then did an almost comical double-take. What he had taken for a simple Beretta 92-F pistol was instead a select-fire automatic weapon, and he recognized it as such.

Bolan gave Davis mental points for that.

Next he produced the Desert Eagle, watched Davis’s eyes widen at the massive weapon and replaced it. He reholstered the Beretta.

“Sir?”

“Many officers, especially those in smaller cities, go their entire lives without firing their weapons,” Bolan said. “In a big, violent city like Detroit, those chances are lower, but still good. Before we’re through, there’s a very good chance you’ll see me fire both of these. And you will fire your own weapon. Show me.”

Davis hesitated only the barest fraction of a second. He reached into his jacket and then, carefully, withdrew his pistol. He ejected the magazine of the Glock 19 and racked the slide, dropping the ejected round. He hit his head on the dash diving for it, but he got it.

“Spare magazines?” Bolan asked.

“Two, Agent Cooper.”

“Well, swing by the station and pick up some spares. That’s issue?”

“Department approved list,” Davis said.

“All right,” Bolan said. “Now. Are you in or out, Davis?”

“Uh… Well, in, of course, sir. I mean, the department assigned.”

“No, Davis. You. You personally. We’re about to walk down a dark hallway. If you’re going to do it, you need to know that it’s coming. That it might get bad. That it almost certainly will. Think carefully. I don’t want a quick answer. I want to know if you’ll stick this out.”

Davis looked away. Bolan watched him swallow, hard. He was thinking about it. The subtle change to the set of the younger man’s shoulders told the soldier what Davis’s answer would be…and that he meant it.

Davis turned to meet Bolan’s gaze. “I’m in.”

“Good,” Bolan said.

“So who are you, Cooper? Really?”

“Like the card says,” Bolan said. He reached into his pocket and produced a business card. The front of the card was blank except for the engraved words, Matt Cooper, Justice Department.

Davis turned the card over and ran a hand through his thick, close-cropped hair. “These contact numbers?”

“They’ll forward to my wireless,” Bolan said. “If we get separated, call any of them. You’ll reach me no matter what.”

Davis nodded. He reached into his jacket. “I have the list your supervisor said you wanted.”

Bolan almost smiled at that. The idea of Brognola as anyone’s mere “supervisor,” perhaps fighting with the photocopier or drinking coffee in a break room, struck him as laughable. He knew precisely what Davis was talking about, however. He had sent the request to the Farm by text message while reviewing the files transmitted to his phone. He needed a place to start, and the murder victims were it.

Innocent people had died, their blood on the knife of some psycho killer…or killers. Government profilers would look for patterns in victims in order to find serial killers. If this was a serial killer, a group of them—it was rare, but it had happened before—the common thread among the victims would tell Bolan where to look next. If there truly was no thread, and the victims were chosen merely for convenience, then looking deeper into the circumstances of their murders would likewise give him something to go on.

Bolan was no detective; he was a battle-hardened, experience-trained soldier. But he understood predators. After witnessing the aftermath of the latest killing, he had no doubt that he was dealing with at least one truly deadly bipedal monster.

The Executioner was going hunting.

“Every victim so far,” Davis said, handing over the list, “as tabulated by the folks at the department. You’ll find current addresses and, where possible, some notes from the files that seemed relevant. You realize, though, sir, that the killings are apparently random. It’s not likely we’ll find anything.”

“These notes are handwritten,” Bolan said, ignoring Davis’s other remarks.

“The notes? Yes, sir, Agent Cooper.” Davis nodded. “I made them.”

Bolan nodded. Initiative even though he thought Agent Cooper was barking up the wrong tree. That was good. It meant Davis wasn’t afraid to speak his mind.

He would, however, have to be careful. Brognola hadn’t said it out loud; it hadn’t been necessary. A group of killers operating for this long, under these conditions, the killings until recently covered up—it reeked of police corruption. Brognola wasn’t normally so down on local law enforcement. The fact that he’d spoken so harshly of the men and women on the ground here was a coded message to Bolan, just in case Brognola’s words ever went beyond the walls of his office. The man was smart, and he hadn’t stayed where he was in the Justice Department for so long without having a few tricks up his sleeves. Assuming the walls had ears was one of these.

“So where do we start, Agent Cooper?”

“At the beginning,” Bolan said. “First name on the list. We’ll shake the tree and sees what falls loose.” There was, of course, the possibility that going back over the territory trod by the killers would make them nervous, bring them out. Depending on how professional they were—a well-financed and trained terrorist cell, for example—this might make little difference. But it might cause something to break. Bolan could feel it; he could see it in the pavement; he could smell it in the air. Things were going to get bloody before it was over.

“I know that neighborhood,” Davis said. “It’s not exactly one of Detroit’s more affluent ones.”

“Good thing I’ve got a cop to go with me,” Bolan said. He put the car into gear and looked up to check the rearview mirror.

He heard the gunshot just as the mirror exploded, pelting him with sharp fragments of plastic and glass.

2

“Down!” Bolan shouted. He stomped the accelerator to the floor, whipping the steering wheel hard over. The powerful engine growled in response, and the Charger burned rubber as it heeled around, pushing Bolan and Davis back in their seats. The detective crouched behind the dash and Bolan did his best to slide, fractionally, into his bucket seat as he urged the car forward, toward the danger. Bullet holes starred the windshield, joining the one that had taken the mirror with it. Bolan ignored them, his right hand clenching the wheel, his left hand snaking into his jacket to reverse-draw the Beretta.

There were at least half a dozen shooters fanned out and moving up the street as if a small army of cops weren’t barely within earshot. They wore street clothes and carried themselves with a practiced, almost casual menace that Bolan immediately recognized. These were hired guns, street muscle, and they would have had to be paid well to mount the brazen assault they pushed.

The shooters had automatic rifles, a motley collection of Kalashnikovs, ARs, and other assault weapons. Bullets ripped a path up the hood of the Charger as Bolan crushed the pedal under his boot. He went straight for the lead gunner, a man in a leather jacket who held an AK to his shoulder. He shouted something as Bolan bore down on him.

“Holy—” Davis started to say.

The Charger slammed into the gunman with bone-crushing force. The collision flattened the car’s nose, driving its hood under the target’s suddenly airborne body. The windshield took the impact after that, turning to glass spiderwebs and blood tracings, jarring Bolan and Davis in their seats. The soldier slammed the Charger into Reverse and burned rubber again, whipping around, the car taking broadsides from the other gunmen. The shooters had been scattered by the Executioner’s automotive missile, but they had recovered quickly and were once again pouring on the fire.

Answering shots came from the officers on the scene, as the uniformed contingent recovered from the shock of the attack and began to get into the action. Bolan was grateful but wasn’t about to let the Detroit Police Department fight his battle for him. And there was no doubt in his mind that it was his battle, for the attack had been just too coincidental, too seemingly without motive, to be anything other than a hit directed at him personally. Unless Davis had some serious gambling debts Bolan didn’t know about, these were killers whose mission was to eliminate Agent Cooper.

As the bullet-riddled Charger spun about, Davis was up in his seat, his Glock in his hand, firing at targets of opportunity. The gunmen weren’t hard to spot, bold as they were, standing in full view of God, the Detroit PD and anybody, emptying illegal full-automatic weaponry on a public street. Distant screams told Bolan that the gunfight had caught the attention of the neighbors. But there were no innocents in the line of fire…yet. Bolan knew he would have to end this engagement as quickly as possible to prevent that from changing.

He fired out his window, the Beretta 93-R set for 3-round bursts, punching his enemies in the head whenever possible and going for center-of-mass shots when the angle was poor. The hollowpoint 9 mm bullets did their deadly work as Davis punctuated Bolan’s machine pistol blasts with single shots of his own.

Bolan pushed the Charger up onto the narrow sidewalk and between a building and a light pole, drawing sparks and the shrieking of metal on metal from the flank of the tortured rental car. One of the gunmen wasn’t fast enough; he fell under the crumpled bumper of the Dodge, causing the vehicle to bounce upward over the speed bump of his sudden corpse. Bolan dug in, accelerating again, causing Davis to grimace as the Charger burned sideways on squealing tires. Davis dropped one more shooter and Bolan punched yet another in the head and neck.

“Who are they?” Davis shouted over the din.

“Hired help,” Bolan said, dropping a nearly empty 20-round magazine and swapping it for a fresh one from the pouches in his custom leather shoulder holster. “And they didn’t just come from nowhere. Look for a vehicle with passenger capacity, or a cluster of cars.”

The Charger’s engine was starting to spew black, oily smoke, spraying the wrecked windshield with spurts of oil. Bolan urged it on, shooting across the street, charting a course directly for a man with a MAC-10 submachine gun dressed in dark pants and shirt with a stained trench coat over these. Something about this one, in particular, struck Bolan as familiar—just as the Charger struck its target. A spray of heavy .45-caliber slugs almost chewed through the roof as Davis and Bolan threw themselves to either side. The bullets ripped up the interior of the car and smashed out what was left of the rear window.

Bolan cut short, sharp circles with the car, his jaw set, his eyes roving the crowd and the players running among it, gauging targets of opportunity and screening friendlies from his mental computations. He gripped the wheel with one hand and fired with the other, the Beretta barking a deadly rhythm. He stroked triple bursts of 9 mm hollowpoint rounds from the snout of the machine pistol, cutting down another, and another, and another gunman. Bodies were beginning to pile up two deep, or so it seemed.

That was an illusion brought on by the adrenaline, the tunnel vision, the tachypsychia of mortal combat. Bolan, while not immune to the physiological effects of life-and-death battle, was certainly no stranger to these sensations. He was as comfortable operating with and through them as it was possible for a human being to be. Still, that did not mean a great deal. Bolan understood, as so many veteran operators did, that much of combat efficacy was simply learning to function efficiently and accurately despite the psychological effects of the fight itself.

Combat was as natural to Bolan as breathing. And he did not think these things, did not subvocalize them, did not consider them as he swapped out another empty 20-round magazine in the Beretta, leaning on the steering wheel with his left knee as he racked the Beretta’s slide and chambered the first round.

“Cooper!” Davis yelled. Again Bolan did not think; he did not need to ask. He flattened himself against his headrest and squeezed his eyes shut, tucking his chin, as Davis’s Glock came up in his direction.

The shots were deafening in the enclosed space of the Charger’s front seats. Davis had seen the man in the leather jacket before Bolan and had responded, as he was trained to do. The gunner held a drum-fed semiautomatic shotgun and managed to scrape the driver’s-side fender of Bolan’s vehicle with double-00 Buck pellets as he went down. Davis’s shots took the shooter in the neck and under the jaw, folding him in a heap like dirty laundry. Bolan’s ears were ringing, but he nodded once in acknowledgment to Davis nonetheless. The kid was good.

Bolan urged the Dodge back toward the Detroit police, who were using their vehicles as cover and firing straggler shots into what little resistance remained. As quickly as it had begun, the worst of it seemed to be over. Bolan hit the brakes suddenly, jerking the car to a stop, and leaned out his window, tagging a running gunman who was trying to break for a nearby alleyway. The man went down yelling, with a bullet in his leg, and Bolan was out of the rolling car with his Beretta in his fist.

Behind him, Davis scrambled into the driver’s seat and stepped on the brake again before shifting the battle-torn Dodge into Park.

Bolan was on his quarry like a hawk on a mouse. The shooter rolled onto his back, his leg spraying blood from a bad wound, his face already pale as he brought up his TEC-9. The Executioner slapped the ungainly weapon aside as he landed on the wounded man’s chest with one knee, driving the air out of the gunner’s chest.

“Junk,” Bolan said, snatching the TEC-9 from the man’s hand. He shoved the black muzzle of the Beretta into his face. “Always were a jam waiting to happen.”

“I want a lawyer!” the disarmed shooter squealed. “I got rights!”

“Give me a name,” Bolan said. “Or all you’ll get will be a bullet in the brain when I’m finished with you.”

The dialogue sounded corny even to Bolan, but it was the kind of language spoken by punks-for-hire. Bolan could hear Davis coming up behind him and hoped the young detective wouldn’t overreact to the soldier’s bluff.

“A name,” Bolan said. Sirens were erupting from the lot across the street as the police, having cleared their part of the gun battle, moved to seal off the area. It would be only moments before some of them blundered into this little scene. Bolan didn’t have time for that. He heard Davis behind him, running interference as the first of the Detroit PD closed in and started asking questions. He gave Davis mental points for that. The kid was doing well during his trial by fire. The noise and activity behind them increased as emergency response personnel started to arrive. More Detroit PD were showing up by the carload, too. The sudden war on this already tainted city block had brought half the department out in a bid to clamp down on the chaos.

In the noise and confusion, it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Bolan’s prisoner tried to make play. The knife came out with surprising speed. Bolan heard the snick of the blade opening just as he caught the movement; he was ready for it. He grabbed the would-be killer’s knife hand and wrist in a crushing grip. Behind him, Davis gasped, probably because he was watching Bolan’s knuckles go white. Something cracked in the wounded man’s hand and he yelped. The folding combat knife fell to the pavement.

“Give me a name,” Bolan repeated. “Or I’ll break the other one.”

“Don’t know,” the man blurted, shaking his head as his pride gave way to pain. “Contract job. Never saw a face.”

“Contract on who?” Bolan demanded.

“Jacket…” the man said, gritting his teeth. “Jacket pocket.”