Dead Man's Tale Read online

  Annotation

  An American agent is gunned down in Luxemburg before he reveals the code to a hologram that contains the blueprint for a sweeping Mafia takeover in Europe. The Mob wants in on what the U. S. government knows. They're certain that one man can tell them.

  Kidnapped in a fast, well-planned raid and transported halfway across the world, Mack Bolan plays cat and mouse with his enemies through the streets of Europe. For a man between missions, he'd been pulled into a hot one.

  But hard intel gets fast answers... and puts the Executioner on top of a double-barrel assignment: find the missing code... and stop worldwide Mafia tyranny dead in its tracks.

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  Don Pendleton's

  Prologue

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  Epilogue

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  Don Pendleton's

  The Executioner

  Dead Man's Tale

  He who would greatly achieve must greatly dare, for brilliant victory is only achieved at the risk of disastrous defeat.

  Washington Irving, 1783–1859

  My critics... want war too methodical, too measured; I would make it brisk, bold, impetuous, perhaps sometimes even audacious.

  Jomini: "Précis de l'Art de la Guerre", 1838

  I refuse to stand idly by while the international Mob attempts worldwide consolidation. I'll hit fast and hard when they least expect it. And I'll take no prisoners in this war.

  Mack Bolan

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Peter Leslie for his contribution to this work.

  Prologue

  For three hours the killers in the black Mercedes had been doing their damndest to close in on their prey. The agent's car, a small Peugeot convertible, was far less powerful, but it was more maneuverable and he could outaccelerate the heavy sedan in the hilly, wooded terrain.

  That was fine — as long as he could steer clear of the flat country, as long as he could stay with the tourist traffic on these busy scenic routes. Each time he hit a straightaway, where the Mercedes could make use of its superior top speed, he was agonizingly aware of his vulnerability, of the target his broad back presented for the machine gunners in the sedan.

  The American's own targets were simple: stay ahead of the killers long enough to make a large town; once there, lose them long enough to locate a post office and mail that vital package back to the States.

  His goals were okay in theory, but the only town in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg big enough to lose a professional tail was Luxembourg city itself. And to get there, forty kilometers to the south, he'd have to traverse, one way or another, the flatlands in the middle of the principality.

  The killers had picked him up on the expressway east of Brussels, after he'd registered the photographic plates as air freight on a Sabena jetliner flying to New York. For security reasons he'd intended to send the second package by another route. Airmail it from Liege, perhaps. But the squat, dark bulk of the Mercedes, growing larger every second in his rearview mirror, had prompted him to leave the highway at the first opportunity and keep to the twisting side roads that penetrated the Ardennes.

  He'd crossed into Luxembourg almost by accident, threading the little Peugeot through a network of secondary routes to avoid the long, straight, undulating, high-speed section that formed part of the Spa-Francorchamps racing circuit. Now he was near the town of Clervaux, in a part of the Grand Duchy known as Little Switzerland.

  The track snaked across a ridge with panoramic views on either side, plunged into a crisscross of narrow, rock-walled valleys and finally tunneled through an evergreen forest to join the road that followed the course of the Clerf River.

  Traffic was more dense here, where the highway, the river and the mainline railroad ran together along the floor of a sinuous gorge. The American tucked the Peugeot between two of the brightly painted trailers in a row of circus vehicles lumbering south. He knew that even if the gunmen in the Mercedes dared to pull out into the oncoming traffic to overtake him, they'd never shoot in front of so many witnesses. The sedan was registered in Palermo, Sicily, and the gunners would have orders to make one hundred percent certain that the hit was anonymous.

  They wouldn't be sure of getting the package, either: with the driver dead, the convertible would most likely crash, perhaps go up in flames. Other drivers would stop and run over to see if they could help, preventing the mobsters from getting their hands on the goods.

  Right now the hunted man was more worried about the white needle on his fuel gauge, which was hovering dangerously near the empty mark. There was a real danger that he could run out of gas before he made it to the capital.

  Brakes squealed as the circus convoy slowed for an intersection. Swerving out from behind momentarily, the American saw traffic lights, a turnoff that led between tall, narrow old houses toward Diekirch, the vineyards of the Moselle Valley and the German frontier.

  The convoy swung left and took the road for Diekirch.

  The American swore. He slammed the stick shift into second and shot a red light. The convertible laid down rubber, wheels spinning as he arrowed it between the stalls of a street market.

  In the rearview mirror, he saw a panel truck, a BMW, then the black Mercedes. At the far end of the street was a signboard that read: Luxembourg 25.

  Almost exactly fifteen miles.

  The town of Wiltz was long gone. He had to be near Ettelbruck. And between there and Mersch, the road ran across a flat countryside punctuated by isolated farms, with few trees, no woods and scarcely a curve for the next seven miles...

  The panel truck stopped outside a shed stacked with lumber. Two hundred meters farther on, the BMW turned in through the white gates of a large house. The American was alone with the killers.

  There was nothing he could do but press on and await the inevitable. He was unarmed: his .38-caliber Police Special had been taken when they ransacked his hotel room in Brussels and stole back the originals of the photocopied sheets he'd delivered to Sabena at the airport.

  He reckoned they knew about the photographs. Otherwise they wouldn't be so determined to eliminate him and grab the second package, without which the photo plates would be useless.

  Two miles out from Ettelbruck, the gunners opened fire for the first time.

  The road climbed out of a shallow valley and ran straight ahead for a kilometer before it vanished over a slight rise. There was no traffic in either direction, a tiny chapel was the only building visible among fields of sugar beet, maize and yellow mustard.

  The tuned engine of the Peugeot howled as the American held the pedal flat against the floor. But slowly the Mercedes gained. When it was twenty meters away, the tinted electric window on the passenger side slid down, and the modular snout and grooved handgrip of a Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun appeared. Flame danced briefly around the muzzle.

  The weapon was silenced. The American heard nothing over the rasp of the little car's exhaust. The first he knew of the attack was a searing pain that ripped across the top of his right shoulder. The windshield starred and became opaque.

  The driver smashed his fist through the safety glass, punching out a hole to see through as the convertible veered wildly across the road.

  Engine straining, the Mercedes closed meter by meter. After that first short ranging volley, t
he gunner took longer over the second burst. The American felt the car shudder as a stream of subsonic 9 mm slugs thudded into the bodywork beneath the folded top.

  He cursed again. He was unfamiliar with the car; he'd rented it from an agency at the airport outside Brussels. Where was the gas tank? Were the bastards aiming for it? Gritting his teeth, he began to swerve the Peugeot across the road, blocking any attempt by the sedan to draw alongside.

  The gunman was leaning out the window now. He leveled the SMG and fired again. Fiberglass chips and bright fragments of metal bounced and spun across the pavement behind the convertible. And this time there could be no doubt about it: wind screaming through the hole in the smashed windshield was creating a turbulence in the back of the car that forced the sweet, acrid odor of gasoline forward, washing it over the driver.

  He squinted his eyes half-closed against the airflow buffeting his face. He punched more glass from the shattered windshield, wincing with pain as the effort sent fire flaming through the shoulder. He thought the wound was superficial, a furrow gouged along the side of his neck, because he could still use his arm, and the blood, warm on his flesh, was congealing before it reached his wrist. It hurt like hell, just the same, each time he moved.

  The rearview mirror was still intact. He swerved the Peugeot again and saw the image of the gunman reappear at the window of the sedan. But this time no flame flickered from the SMG. The killer had exhausted the clip.

  As the gunner slumped back into his seat to reload, the Peugeot breasted the rise and raced down the long, straight downgrade on the far side. Three car-lengths behind, the driver of the Mercedes swung wide to draw level... and then pulled the sedan back as a semitrailer labored around a curve and began to lumber up the hill toward them.

  Two hundreds meters ahead, a tractor pulling a cart heavily laden with bales of hay had turned out of a dirt road and blocked the way. Brakes screeching, the convertible left black rubber on the pavement as it skidded sideways to avoid the slow-moving load.

  Then, shifting down with a yell of protest from the engine, the American squeezed the car through the narrowing gap between the bales of hay and the advancing semi, rocketing on toward the curve at the foot of the grade.

  The driver of the Mercedes couldn't make it. He stood on the pedal, heaving up on the hand brake at the same time. Then, at the last moment, feeling the sedan start to break away, he released the brakes and shot across in front of the semi onto the grass bordering the road.

  Clumps of earth flew into the air; big wheels plowed furrows among the wayside blossoms; the front fender of the Mercedes scarred a bank beneath a hedgerow. Then the vehicle bumped back onto the road.

  The Peugeot convertible was three hundred meters ahead now, preparing to take the curve. A short distance beyond, a stand of trees shaded the entrance to a village.

  The American's breath quickened. Did he have a chance after all? He dared to hope.

  Seconds later, Fate dealt him a joker, and he rethought the whole deal.

  The village was a single long street with stores lining both sides. Halfway down the street, a file of country folk clambered aboard a bus, a green-and-cream vehicle with a plume of diesel smoke fanning from the tail pipe. The word Luxembourg was lettered in white on its side.

  The American shot past the bus and brought the Peugeot to a halt by the sidewalk. He snatched a black leather satchel from among the glass fragments littering the passenger seat and ran back to the bus. He squeezed on board just as the hydraulic doors hissed shut.

  The bus driver took his money and punched out a ticket. He shifted into Drive and the bus lurched forward.

  Panting, the hunted man clamped the satchel beneath his injured arm, clasped his left hand over the bloodstain on his shoulder and sank into a vacant seat.

  Through the rear window, he saw the Mercedes pull in behind.

  It remained there, sometimes crawling immediately behind, sometimes separated by a truck or a few cars. And then, turning around when the bus started to grind up a steep grade, the American noticed that the sedan was no longer with them. The killers and their car had apparently abandoned the chase.

  He shrugged. He would have to be especially watchful when he left the bus, that was all.

  But there was no black Mercedes sedan to be seen when he got off the bus in the city center. No suspicious characters jostled him as he moved among the late-afternoon shoppers crowding the sidewalks as he made his way to the post office. The broad flight of steps leading up to the entrance was deserted. He took them three at a time.

  The sniper — alerted by the killers in the Mercedes-drilled a precision round through the American's temple. He never knew what hit him.

  1

  It was the slickest snatch Washington had experienced in years.

  At 10:16 a.m. Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner, turned a handle and walked through a doorway that led to the D. C. safehouse of Hal Brognola's Sensitive Operations Group. At 10:17 Bolan was lying unconscious on the floor of a car heading south for the Capitol Beltway.

  The morning was sunny, with high white clouds sailing lazily across a clear sky. It had been raining earlier, but by the time Bolan paid off his cab on Eleventh Street, the sidewalks had steamed themselves dry and the tires of traffic streaming down from Capitol Hill no longer hissed over the patched pavement. Hal Brognola, boss of the group and its sole link with the White House, was due to take off for some well-earned R and R. And although the big Fed used the place as a safehouse when he needed to meet illegals whose presence at his Justice Department office would have been an embarrassment, Bolan's business at the HQ involved nothing more lethal than to make arrangements to meet Brognola for a backpacking trip into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Five minutes after he had paid off the cab, he entered a corner grocery store at the end of a line of redbrick town houses.

  A nondescript Plymouth was maneuvering into a gap between two vehicles parked at the side of the road as he pushed open the door. Behind the reflection of his own dark hair, blue eyes and hawklike features, a section of the sunny street slanted away and swung inward as the glass-paneled door opened.

  In the street behind him, a wino with a stogie drooping from his unshaven lip put a hand on the arm of a passing businessman in an unspoken request for a light. The digital clock above the newsstand read 10:16.

  Bolan walked into the store and proceeded immediately to the back, where two phone booths stood. He entered the left-hand booth, which was half hidden by a rack of paperback whodunnits, and lifted the handset of an old dial telephone. Then, reading the figures off a line penciled on a slip of paper, he spun out the nine-digit code for that day.

  While waiting for the secret door at the back of the booth to slide open, Bolan glanced into the store. Nick Alexiou, the elderly Greek who ran the business, was in his shirt-sleeves, crouched over a desk in the shadows at the far end of the long, narrow room. A blonde Bolan hadn't seen before sat behind the cash register.

  The girl looked at Alexiou and made eye contact, favoring him with a lopsided smile. The old man grunted something unintelligible and hunched himself still farther over his paperwork.

  Interpreting the gesture as Alexiou being in one of his irascible moods, the Executioner shrugged, cocked an approving eye at the curves beneath the coveralls and turned back to the phone.

  Beyond the sliding door, a passageway led to a house in the next block, a villa with white-painted bay windows, its yard bright with spring flowers. Indoors, the villa was not quite what it seemed to folks strolling along the quiet residential street. Closed circuit cameras monitored every square foot of the building. Alarm sensors protected each opening in the armored walls, and bulletproof steel shutters could seal off doors and windows at the touch of a switch. A sophisticated, electronically shielded computer complex was stationed next to Brognola's second-floor office.

  A severe-looking woman wearing thick glasses sat behind the desk in the reception area that filled the villa's hallway. She'd se
en Bolan's arrival at the grocery store on the monitor linked to the camera in the phone booth. Once she'd checked the number he dialed against an entry in a code book, she pressed the button that would deactivate the locking magnets and allow hydraulic rams to slide open the secret door.

  The door didn't open.

  Normally, conditioned by long training and by years of combat in the field, Bolan's catlike alertness never relaxed. Even when he wasn't on a mission.

  Today, however — perhaps relaxed and amused by the thought of a hike through the woods with his out-of-shape friend — he must have been fractionally less vigilant than usual.

  Which was why several seconds elapsed before he realized that the correctly dialed code was not opening the door, and that a faint but persistent hissing above his head was connected with an unexpected odor in the air.

  Bolan's reflexes snapped abruptly back into top gear. He noticed the narrow, deep cuts in the woodwork that must have severed the electric circuit that controlled the door mechanism, saw the tiny cylinder of gas hidden in the dead area just below the lens of the video camera. And saw, too, the deft arrangement of fine wires through which, by spinning the dial, he had triggered the release of the cylinder's contents.

  Desperately he stretched up toward the container and its deadly gas, but his arms seemed abnormally heavy, his fingers thick and numb. A loud noise thundered in his ears, and his chest was on fire. Whirling, he ran for the door through which he'd entered, and the lifegiving fresh air beyond — at least that was what his fogged brain commanded his muscles to do. All he achieved was a staggering half turn as he slumped against the wall of the booth...

  The man masquerading as Alexiou nodded to his blond companion. Together they dragged the Executioner toward the door, hauling him by the legs as though they were the handles of a wheelbarrow. They were joined by two men — a businessman in a dark suit and a Homberg hat and an unsavory-looking character with stubble on his chin. The four picked up the unconscious warrior and stood just inside the open door of the shop in a compact group, supporting Bolan's body between them.