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  On the count of fifty, the Executioner moved into action

  Bolan came around the curve of the tunnel with the AKSU firing into the chamber’s entrance. But he had to be somewhat cautious and reduce the risk of breaking the chemical flasks if they were in the room. The only way to do this was to hit hard, find direct targets and to strike with surprise, preventing the enemy from firing back and setting up a siege situation.

  Unloading continuous rounds as he moved, Bolan finally got his first look at the place where the terrorists had made their base.

  MACK BOLAN®

  The Executioner

  #230 Deep Attack

  #231 Slaughter Squad

  #232 Jackal Hunt

  #233 Tough Justice

  #234 Target Command

  #235 Plague Wind

  #236 Vengeance Rising

  #237 Hellfire Trigger

  #238 Crimson Tide

  #239 Hostile Proximity

  #240 Devil’s Guard

  #241 Evil Reborn

  #242 Doomsday Conspiracy

  #243 Assault Reflex

  #244 Judas Kill

  #245 Virtual Destruction

  #246 Blood of the Earth

  #247 Black Dawn Rising

  #248 Rolling Death

  #249 Shadow Target

  #250 Warning Shot

  #251 Kill Radius

  #252 Death Line

  #253 Risk Factor

  #254 Chill Effect

  #255 War Bird

  #256 Point of Impact

  #257 Precision Play

  #258 Target Lock

  #259 Nightfire

  #260 Dayhunt

  #261 Dawnkill

  #262 Trigger Point

  #263 Skysniper

  #264 Iron Fist

  #265 Freedom Force

  #266 Ultimate Price

  #267 Invisible Invader

  #268 Shattered Trust

  #269 Shifting Shadows

  #270 Judgment Day

  #271 Cyberhunt

  #272 Stealth Striker

  #273 UForce

  #274 Rogue Target

  #275 Crossed Borders

  #276 Leviathan

  #277 Dirty Mission

  #278 Triple Reverse

  #279 Fire Wind

  #280 Fear Rally

  #281 Blood Stone

  #282 Jungle Conflict

  #283 Ring of Retaliation

  #284 Devil’s Army

  #285 Final Strike

  #286 Armageddon Exit

  #287 Rogue Warrior

  #288 Arctic Blast

  #289 Vendetta Force

  #290 Pursued

  #291 Blood Trade

  #292 Savage Game

  #293 Death Merchants

  #294 Scorpion Rising

  #295 Hostile Alliance

  #296 Nuclear Game

  #297 Deadly Pursuit

  #298 Final Play

  #299 Dangerous Encounter

  #300 Warrior’s Requiem

  #301 Blast Radius

  #302 Shadow Search

  #303 Sea of Terror

  #304 Soviet Specter

  #305 Point Position

  Don Pendleton’s

  The Executioner®

  POINT POSITION

  The battle is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

  —Patrick Henry

  Men rise from one ambition to another; first they seek to secure themselves from attack, and then they attack others.

  —Niccolo Machiavelli

  Every battle has a decisive moment—either forge ahead or go home. I’ll play to the end every time.

  —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

  Epilogue

  1

  “That’s it. The one on the left,” the bearded man whispered to his two companions.

  The small woman to his left shot him a quizzical look. “You sure about that, Jean-Louis?”

  The bearded man—Jean-Louis Garrault—shrugged in a manner that could be taken as almost parodic, given his French nationality. But then, the idea of being a French national was something that would have made Garrault spit blood in anger.

  “What the hell does that mean, Jean-Louis?” asked the squat, ugly man to his right. “It either is or it isn’t.”

  “Of course it is, you idiot,” Garrault muttered angrily. “Do you really think I would direct us to the wrong target?”

  “Of course, you wouldn’t,” the squat man replied. “I do, however, know that you are far from perfect.”

  There was an angry, tense silence as Garrault stared down at the shorter man. Salvatore Signella was a Sicilian, a man who had no apparent fight with the French government and yet had joined Garrault, Francine Malpas—the woman to Garrault’s left—and the other members of Destiny’s Spear, a direct action political cell—with just the comment that his political views were in sympathy with theirs. The fact that he had joined at the time they had first gained the patronage of Hector Chavez-Smith had a significance that wasn’t lost on Garrault. But, like the others, he ignored this because of the cash that Chavez-Smith poured into their organization, enabling them to carry out their campaign of action.

  It was just that on nights like this, it seemed that they were more a vehicle for Chavez-Smith than an autonomous cell in their own right. It was the Chilean drug baron who had wanted them to make this snatch, and it seemed to serve no obvious political purpose. It wouldn’t even—as Garrault understood matters—get them into the media in the same way that their bank raids to raise funds had done in the past. To take the money from the pigs was the best way to make them aware of their sick status in the corrupt system, Garrault thought. But this?

  Signella met the Frenchman’s stare and returned one that was stony and impassive. He was unblinking. There was no way that the Frenchman could rea
d what was going on behind those blank eyes. All he knew was that he was strong—lean and wiry, with a good four inches in height over the Sicilian—but that Signella was more powerful, with muscles like cords on his neck and forearms. The Sicilian also had an almost offhand callousness and disregard for pain that made Garrault shudder when he considered going one-on-one.

  So he was glad when Malpas stepped between them.

  “Stop this pissing contest,” she murmured coldly. “If you’re sure that’s the target, then we’ve got work to do.”

  It gave Garrault no pleasure in the fact that Signella looked away first. It was an offhand gesture that suggested Malpas was right, and that Garrault was foolish to continue.

  The target sat about four hundred yards from where they stood under cover. It was a fuel tanker, parked between two others that were identical in model and with the same name and logo on the sides, differentiated only by the amount of mud, dust and grime that covered each vehicle.

  The tankers were situated in a position where abduction would be easily noticed.

  “Guards?” Signella growled, gesturing with the muzzle of his Uzi at the five men who were spread across the yard. Two were sitting on upturned metal barrels, talking. Another was checking a toolbox by a rickety wooden shed. The final two were at separate ends of the yard. One seemed to be urinating through the chain-link fence, and the other was surreptitiously smoking, in blatant disregard for the sign above his head.

  Five to three, and spread out. This wouldn’t be easy. Garrault felt the pit of his stomach begin to ripple with fear and excitement, as it did before any mission.

  “They don’t look like they are,” he replied in a voice that was too calm for his current state, “but we have to assume so. If this is as important as Hector believes, then it would be guarded. There is no one else in the yard, right, Francine?” He paused and looked across to the woman, whose task it had been to do a recon earlier. When she assented, he continued. “Then we have to assume they are hostile and take them out as quickly as possible.”

  Signella grunted. “Let’s do it, then.”

  The trio of Destiny’s Spear gunners—or, as the French government designated them, three members of one of the most wanted and dangerous right-wing terrorist splinter groups currently in operation—moved out. Despite any personal antipathies, they were committed to their cause, to the extent of undergoing rigorous training, and so moved with a stealth and skill that ranked them with the best of terrorists.

  The yard where the three tankers rested was in the middle of the port area of Marseilles. A half mile down the road lay the bright lights and easy life of the millionaires’playground, where jet-setters berthed their yachts and walked the brightly lit streets with the beautiful people who stayed within that small area. But there was also nocturnal activity of a vastly differing nature. The majority of business in the port area was conducted by day, but there were also columns of strong arc lights that enabled loading and unloading to continue in the hours of darkness. Container boats, cargo ships and freighters of all descriptions—and of all kinds of manifests, with few questions asked for a few francs in hand—used the port, and there were always seamen along the walkways and paths between the water and the cargo sheds.

  In the yards—little more than flat-packed dirt or loose gravel squares with makeshift sheds and trailers for offices—the container trucks and tankers were berthed when not in use, hired out by haulage firms by the month. Because of this, security was at a minimum, with chain-link fencing and padlocked gates seemingly the extent of any precautions taken by those who leased the land. The area was lit at night by fading halogen lamps mounted poorly in the corners, leaving inviting pools of shadow.

  It was in these shadows that the three terrorists moved. Although it was quiet at this end of the docks, there was still enough distant background noise to mask their progress if they moved stealthily. They had trained to do this, all of them having traveled to the United States to train in camps run by paramilitary right-wing groups who had affiliations with other groups in Europe, Africa and Asia.

  Signella moved off to the right, flanking the two men on barrels, and heading for the man who was apparently urinating. In a distant corner, with his back to the main body of the yard, his hands hidden from view by his actions, the guard presented the greatest potential threat. He was the unknown factor, as all the other men had their hands in view. None had weapons, and the fractions of seconds it would take them to draw represented an advantage for the terrorists. Outnumbered as they were, this could only be a good thing.

  The Sicilian palmed a leaf-bladed knife from his shirt, feeling the balance of the shaft and hilt in the hollow of his hand. Even in the almost nonexistent light of the yard, the blade gleamed. He looked up, judging the distance between himself and the guard with his back to him. In truth, the man could have been little more than an unsuspecting mechanic taking a leak at an inopportune moment. It was of no account to the Sicilian, who raised his arm and threw the knife in a fluid motion. It had power and precision, and it had a blade of razor-sharpened Toledo steel that bit into flesh, ripping easily through cloth. The man at the chain-link fence pitched forward, the fencing sagging slightly on old posts as it took his weight. His hands fell free, his bladder continuing to empty down his lifeless legs as he slumped to the dirt.

  Signella looked around sharply. The man had made little noise in dying, but still enough to be noticed. He raised the Uzi, ready.

  A thin smile crossed his lips as the sudden explosion of action showed that he had no need to worry.

  FRANCINE MALPAS MOVED toward the smoking man in the far corner. Like Signella, she was shielded partly from view by the shadows of the malfunctioning halogen lights, and partly by the containers that were stacked by the gates, three across and two high. They were old and rusting, and seemed to have been there from some previous leasee who hadn’t bothered to remove them when his lease ran out.

  Strange, she thought. If this was a military operation, it was negligent that the containers be left to provide cover for any enemy…unless, perhaps, removing them would have drawn too much attention to the new occupants of the yard. No matter, it gave her that extra cover she needed.

  The female terrorist was no expert with knives. She preferred to take out her targets with lead. To this end, she was carrying an AKSU assault rifle, which had the power of an old Kalashnikov, but was much easier to conceal and carry as it had a folding stock and shortened muzzle. It was, however, just as accurate.

  The smoking man was, as she could tell the closer she drew, actually only in a pose of relaxation. In truth, he was sharp-eyed, one hand always hovering near the pocket of his oil-stained blue coveralls.

  Garrault had been right after all. They were on guard, and this had to be the right target.

  She could see the shape of a long-barreled revolver beneath the baggy coveralls. Probably a .357 Magnum Colt Python, not the sort of firearm that was preferred by the U.S. military, but probably the personal preference of an under-cover security operative.

  She felt a shiver of sexual excitement run through her as she raised the AKSU, sighted her target and tapped the trigger. A blast of three armored shells ripped into the man’s chest and stomach, the rippling internal damage taking his life if the shells themselves did not.

  She had no idea how the others were doing with their targets. However, now she had broken the silence, all hell would break loose.

  GARRAULT HAD the hardest of the initial targets. He had to take out the two men on the barrels and cover the man at the shed. There was enough distance between the two groups to make it impossible to take them with one swift arc of gunfire, and so he had to make a choice. Would he hit the group of two and knock out the greater number, or would he take the man by the shed, who was the only one of the guards with anything approaching cover?

  Considering he was still in good cover himself, and not under immediate threat from the two men in the open, he opted for the man
by the shed. An enemy in cover could cost them valuable time in taking the tanker.

  Garrault was carrying a Heckler & Koch MP-5, one of the most reliable SMGs on the market. Once, a jamming Uzi had nearly cost him his life, and it had been Malpas who had saved him. He never wanted to be in anyone’s debt—particularly hers—ever again. From that day, he had refused to carry an Uzi. It was almost a fetish, but it gave him an added confidence to be carrying an MP-5, a confidence that was reflected in the manner in which he took aim with an almost casual ease, not hurrying his fire. A gentle tap on the trigger, and a quick burst of rounds cut into the man standing by the shed, still looking over his toolbox. It was a sound echoed by the blast of the AKSU, and the two men in the middle were momentarily torn between the two bursts of fire as Garrault’s target sprawled across the earth, staining the dirt with his blood and noisily emptying the contents of his toolbox across his descending path.

  The momentary hesitation between targets cost the two men their lives. As they reached into their coveralls, withdrawing Browning Hi-Power pistols, which were completely inadequate against SMG fire from cover, they wavered between the two directions of fire, leaving them completely un-prepared for gunfire from yet another source.

  Signella had turned after hearing the burst of autofire from the far end of the yard, and broke cover, firing with a spray ‘n’pray motion as he ran. The Uzi chattered a stream of rounds that cut into the two security men at waist level, tearing through the muscle and spinal cord below the ribs and above the pelvis, taking the softest and most vulnerable areas of flesh.

  It was short, violent and effective. Almost severed in two, both men dropped to the ground.

  “Take the tanker, quickly,” Signella yelled, turning on his heel to double back toward the security man he had killed with the leaf-bladed knife.

  “You sure it’s the center tanker?” Malpas asked as she and Garrault reached the vehicles.

  “Hundred percent,” he snapped with a touch of acerbity. He didn’t like the note of doubt in her voice. She was always like that when she had just killed.

  The tanker doors were unlocked, and as soon as they were in the cab, Garrault broke the casing under the steering column and hot-wired the engine. It spluttered and grunted into life, sounding sluggish.