Blood of the Lion

  Annotation

  Colonel Hector Alchupa is about to launch the most daring coup the lower Americas have ever seen.

  Backed by dirty money and corrupt officials, this man who would be king assembles five of the world's premier assassins in his Amazon compound. Their mission: to collect the million-dollar bounty placed on the head of Mack Bolan, the only obstacle between Alchupa and the conquest of Brazil.

  Caught between warring mercenary armies, the Executioner turns deadly predator - and stalks his prey to Washington's corridors of power.

  * * *

  Don Pendleton's

  The Mack Bolan Legend

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

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  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

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  17

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  20

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  22

  23

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Don Pendleton's

  Mack Bolan

  Blood of the Lion

  The universe is so vast and so ageless that the life of one man can only be justified by the measure of his sacrifice.

  Pilot Officer V. A. Rosewarne 1916-1940

  There are plenty of good people suffering at the hands of the savages. They're worth fighting for and, if need be, dying for.

  Mack Bolan

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Dan Schmidt for his contribution to this work.

  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 lour 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 al 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.

  Prologue

  He ran through the jungle, a man possessed by fear. Certain that he was going to diem Special Agent Don Thomas of the Drug Enforcement Administration demanded more speed from legs that already felt as heavy as tree stumps. Thorny vines were tearing at his face and neck, slashing his khakis to crimson tatters. He felt the blood, hot and sticky, trickle down his torso. He swore viciously. The pain and discomfort he could deal with. It was the knowledge of failure, though, clawing at the back of his head like the talons of a vulture, that made him livid with rage. Less than a day after his discovery of the cocaine fortress and its inhabitants, he had been found out. And his pursuers would show no mercy if they caught him. No, he would die slowly, horribly, piece by piece. Just yesterday Thomas had seen what they could do to another special agent from the DEA, and his imagination was now aflame with gruesome visions of his own demise.

  Whirling, Thomas raked the green hell of the Amazon jungle with eyes narrowed to slits. He listened intently, straining his ears to pick up any alien sound. Silence. No combat boots trampling the brush and leaf mold. No snapping of twigs. No... nothing! But they were back there, somewhere, he would swear. Not hearing his pursuers meant one thing to him — they were closing in. He couldn't see them as he tried to peer through the tangled mass of vines, the webbed drapery of palm leaves and the stinking clustered mass of aroid leaves as big as elephant ears. But they were there, watching, stalking. They knew the jungle; he didn't. With that knowledge to their advantage, he thought, perhaps even right then his enemies were running their fingers lightly over the razor-sharp blades of. their machetes, blades that Thomas had seen carve up a fellow agent until the doomed DEA man was a crimson lump of blubbering jelly.

  Macacos de cheiro crashed through the thick green foliage above Thomas. The screeching of the squirrel monkeys sounded like the wails of banshees, and Thomas felt fear jolt him like an electrical charge. Quickly, the stench of sweat and jungle rot biting into his nose like ammonia, the special agent slipped the Ingram MAC-10 subgun off his shoulder and curled his finger around the trigger. He scanned the gloomy recesses, found nothing and felt the fear bite deeper into his guts, worming its way into his bowels. Worse, the green camou satchel was a grim burden, like a block of concrete chained around his neck, which seemed to want to drive him straight through the leaf mold and pin him to the jungle floor. But the satchel contained the evidence — photos, and a tape recording made possible by the Agency's STEALTH longrange mike. Was STEALTH a curse or a blessing? he wondered, and almost laughed out loud at the stupid thought. Of course the damn thing was a curse. The whole frigging mission was a curse, but he had confirmed some suspicions that had recently rocked the boat in Wonderland, suspicions that something volatile and deadly was about to happen in Brazil. It was thanks to the D.C. suits in the Justice Department that he was where he was — one breath away, one stumbling facedown fall into the jungle rot away from checking out. Satellite reconnaissance be damned. Hell, he had a wife and three kids. His only thought was to get back home, fall into the arms of his wife, see the smiling faces of his small children.

  But to get home he had to survive.

  Thomas's only hope now was that his contact from Checkpoint Darwin was waiting with the outboard canoe on the banks of the Amazon tributary. Less than thirty minutes ago Thomas had sent the coded Mayday radio transmission. If the contact wasn't there, then Thomas knew his two-week journey up the Amazon would end, not only in his death, but in failure. Utter, dismal, humiliating failure. The evidence he carried, he realized with a stab of bitter resentment, was far more valuable than his own life. That was the bottom line.

  Sucking a deep breath into his burning lungs, Thomas turned. His heart skipped a beat as the forked tongue flickered, inches from his face. The boa constrictor appeared to Thomas like some fat copper-and-green cable as it slithered down the branch, sliding closer to his face.

  Thomas ran. His chest heaved from the exertion, and he wanted to vomit, the heat and the stink of the jungle draining him of energy, slowly sapping him of the will to live. How many miles had he run? Three? Four? God, it could only be another hundred yards or so to the wharf.

  Racing another hundred feet, Thomas spotted shafts of sunlight, golden beams that knifed through the green canopy. Daylight. Breakout. Hope. Surging through the brush, he slipped down the marshy bank and splashed into the slimy brown water of the Amazon offshoot. A second later he heard a motor cough, chug, then die. Looking sideways, clawing his way back up the bank, he saw his contact at the end of the wharf. The young blond guy he knew as McBride gave the rope starter a couple of good jerks, and the engine finally spu
ttered to life.

  Salvation's at hand, Thomas thought. Or was it?

  Thomas bounded onto the wharf. Snatching the satchel off his shoulder, the DEA man hurled the evidence bag down the wharf. As the satchel thudded onto the wood, the rickety wharf creaked and shook.

  "Grab it!" Thomas yelled at his contact, finger tightening around the Ingram's trigger. "Go!"

  "What about you? I can't leave you here!"

  "Forget me, damn it! Go!"

  Thomas had never fancied himself a hero, by any means, but he knew the importance of the evidence he had gathered here in the steamy backwaters of the Amazon, evidence that pointed to some revolution financed by cocaine money, shaped by the hands of some of the world's most notorious international criminals. That evidence had to get back to the States. If he tried to get away with McBride, the odds were they'd both be caught and the valuable evidence destroyed. If he took a stand here against his pursuers, McBride stood a much better chance of getting back to civilization with the photos and tape. Someone, he knew, maybe even some large paramilitary force would return here and wipe the slate clean of his blood.

  Like wraiths, they shadowed through the brush.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas saw his contact hesitate, as if he were torn between leaving and staying to make this last-ditch suicide stand alongside a fellow DEA soldier.

  "Go!" Thomas screamed, then cut loose with the Ingram, a hail of .45 ACP rounds churning up the brush. A sense of grim satisfaction rippled like a chill through Thomas as he saw several shadows tumble to the jungle floor, dark sprays of crimson spattering aroid leaves.

  Ingram subgun in his fists, Thomas advanced toward the trees, savagely intent on taking the fight to the enemy. Raking the brush with blazing autofire, he slipped back into the jungle. Behind Thomas, the outboard canoe slid through the water, and the scaly back of a caiman broke the surface near the end of the wharf. The canoe shot into the current and picked up speed as it headed downstream.

  "C'mon, you bastards!" Thomas snarled, emptying the Ingram's clip, then ramming home a fresh 30-round mag.

  For a long moment, crouching beside a tree, Thomas scoured the jungle. Listening, he heard only the shriek of toucans and other wild birds. Through sweat-burned eyes, he looked up. Beyond the break in the canopy he made out the dark shape of urubus, large black Amazonian vultures with gray heads. He jumped suddenly as a gold-black butterfly, the size of a small bird, fluttered past. His throat parched, his heart hammering in his ears like a drumbeat, he swallowed on his fear. Briefly he fell like a fool for nearly leaping out of his own skin over a butterfly.

  But the danger was there, and it was very real.

  Leaves rustled to his left. Thomas wheeled, firing a short burst from his subgun.

  "Hey. Gringo!"

  Whirling, Thomas triggered a 3-round burst into the jungle.

  "No. Over here."

  Another voice filtered out of the brush, this time taunting him from the right. He twisted, poised to fire, then felt the leather wrap around his throat, biting into his neck. The Ingram was slipping out of his grasp, but he knew he had to decide between holding on to the weapon or trying to pry his fingers beneath the leather garrote. Pinned against the tree, he let the subgun fall from his hands. He clawed at the bullwhip, the air locked in his chest. The canopy of vegetation seemed to shudder. A moment later a half-dozen men with submachine guns dropped out of the trees. With catlike grace, they landed on the ground, the ancient leaf mold barely crackling under their boots.

  Thomas looked at the grinning face, the yellow, chipped teeth like fangs flashing from a lopsided death's-head. The DEA man twisted in the coils of the bullwhip, then the death's-head plunged a fist into his guts. The wind driven from lungs already starved of oxygen, Thomas went limp.

  "Very bad to be down here in jungle spying on us," Thomas heard through the ringing in his ears. "Terrible things happen to agents sent from the DEA to spy on us. No?"

  Ye$, Thomas thought, terrible fucking things do happen. Somehow he managed to call on his last reserves of strength and inject defiance into his voice. "Go ahead, you bastard. Get it over with."

  Sweat burning into his eyes like acid, Thomas looked at the grinning Spaniard.

  "Not so fast. You will talk. And we will make the party last for you. All night. And perhaps all tomorrow. You will beg us to kill you."

  Thomas saw the machete leap away from its sheath. He swallowed, the ball of sweat and spit in his throat pushing with pain and effort past the bullwhip stranglehold. He felt the cold edge of the machete's blade touch his cheek.

  1

  Hal Brognola snapped off the tape recorder with an angry jab of his finger.

  "I'm worried, Striker. And it sounds like I've got damn good reason to be worried. Your ass is in the fire. Yeah, I know," the man from Justice growled as he saw the smile flicker over Bolan's lips. "It's for damn sure not the first time. But this time is different. This time you'll have shadows dancing all around you. And shadow dancing in our business gets guys killed in a hell of a hurry."

  Mack Bolan stood. They were in the office next to the gun room on the basement level of Stony Man Farm. Bolan let his gaze wander around the Spartanly furnished room, barren except for the metal desk, three straight-backed chairs and two file cabinets. Just being in that room caused Bolan to experience a stab of sorrow.

  The Executioner had come in from the cold — albeit reluctantly — and had established loose ties with Uncle Sam. And here he was again at his former base of operations. The memories of what used to be, during a time when Bolan's private war had been given free rein by Uncle Sam following his crusade against the Mafia, still cut through the big guy like a knife.

  "This Operation Sweep of yours, Hal," Bolan told the big Fed behind the metal desk, "is news to me. Why didn't I hear about it before?"

  Brognola clamped an unlit stogie into his mouth. A pensive frown etched his face as he chomped down on the cigar. "Because we had to be sure our principal target was there in the Amazon. Oh, I had plans for you, but first we needed the proof. And that. Striker," he said, nodding at the tape recorder on the desk, then pointing at the manila envelope in front of him, "is all the evidence we need to verify our suspicions. From what you just heard on that tape, these bastards, who by the way wasted four good DEA men, call themselves Anaconda. There are also two other agents missing."

  "Anaconda."

  "Just like the giant South American water boa, it looks like they intend to squeeze the life out of a few more good men and swallow something or somebody whole. Exactly who or what I'm not sure yet. Target or targets: unknown. That's where I intended you to fit in. A search-and-destroy rampage through the Amazon. We know where they are. We just have to get you there — in one piece. But now... hell, after hearing that tape, it sounds like we'll be bringing the sharks straight to the bait. Only it's a question of who will be biting whom when the jaws start gaping. You getting the picture?"

  "Yeah. The picture's grim."

  "Tell me about it. And it'll look grimmer before long. That's why I said, intended. The whole game plan's been changed by this new revelation."

  Mentally Bolan chewed over what he'd just heard on tape. The words "Iceman" and "Ice Eyes" rang through his head. The voice had talked in Spanish about his hitters, the international "vipers of the caldron," the best assassins money could buy. The voice on the tape had also mentioned something about the "Blood of the Lion." The catch clue for both Bolan and Brognola, though, had been the talk about a million-dollar bounty for any of the hitters who brought back the head of "the Iceman," the lone assassin who had shown up, time and again, to destroy the operations of "amigos" in a fiery one-man search-and-destroy. There was little doubt in Bolan's mind as to who "the Iceman" was.

  "A small army of assassins operating out of the Amazon jungle, that's where we stand, Hal. And someone down there is paying the tab to send some headhunted for me. The why isn't hard to understand, but there must be a reason for i
t. The question is, who's hiring the guns?"

  "I'm getting to that. There's no question you've made more than a few enemies over the years. Striker. It could be this Anaconda wants vengeance for an amigo you've iced at some point in time. But the way I read it is that something's getting set to blow wide open down in Brazil. Your reputation precedes you, and maybe Anaconda's just looking to cover their rear before they march."

  "Or maybe they're game players, looking to roll some black dice my way."

  "That's a possibility, too. Flex some muscle. Find out just how good they are by going up against the best. But for somebody to put up a million-dollar bounty on your head out of nowhere... Well, this Anaconda must be nervous about something."

  "Yeah, and there's only one way to find out who's nervous and why. It's time I went hunting for Anaconda."

  "I agree, but hold on a minute, there's more, plenty more," the man from Justice told Bolan, sensing the big guy's eagerness to get on with the manhunting. Brognola picked up the maniia envelope and handed it to Bolan. "Within the past year, the DEA has started a new program, a division that's similar to the CIA's Special Operations Division. Hell, the DEA even calls it Special Operations Division, SOD for short. With billions of dollars' worth of White Lady filtering into the United States every year, the Justice Department wants to step up the pace on the war on drugs. They want movement. They want action. And they want it now. I only got wind of this new division about eight months ago, and that was because the higher-ups in the DEA thought I could be of assistance in directing and assigning these ops. Everything about it is ultrasecret and I couldn't breathe a word about it to anybody, even you — until now. There's something that doesn't quite sit right with me about this division, though."

  "Is it official or unofficial?"

  "Unofficial. Therein lies the problem. Most of these special ops are DEA agents, guys with ten, twelve years' experience under the belt. But I've done a little digging, and demanded that the head of this division answer some questions first before I got involved. It turns out a good number of their operatives are handpicked from other 'free-lance arenas,' which is what the suits at SOD call mercenaries and assassins in one of their moments when everything under the goddamn sun becomes some epic drama to them. These ops of theirs are specially trained in infiltration, sabotage and, yeah, even assassination — just like the Company's specialists."