Savage Deadlock Read online

  NO MAN’S LAND

  A missing U.S. nuclear scientist resurfaces as a member of a guerrilla women’s rights organization in Pakistan, raising all kinds of alarms in Washington. Armed with fissionable material—and the knowledge to use it—the scientist is soon targeted by rebel fighters determined to get their hands on the nukes at any cost.

  With the stability of the entire region on the line, Mack Bolan is tasked with extracting the woman and bringing her Stateside, even if she doesn’t want to go. But as the rebels close in and the rights group realizes its combined weapons and skills can’t compare to those of trained fighters, Bolan and his allies—a handful of Pakistani soldiers and an army officer—are forced to join the battle. Their team might be small, but the Executioner has might on his side.

  “He’s supposed to be on our side!” Davis yelled.

  Suddenly, a burst of fire came from behind them. Bolan spun around and saw Patel charging toward them, spraying bullets.

  “Take her,” Bolan said, thrusting the struggling Lasi into Davis’s hands while he carefully aimed his rifle at the charging Pakistani soldier. Whether it was a temporary flash of insanity, an indication of his hidden hostility toward the women’s rights group or just frustration at a mission gone fugazi, there was no doubt that Patel had murderous intentions. Bolan needed a clean shot to take the man temporarily out of the game.

  He was still drawing a bead when a burst of fire from behind him chopped Patel down as he ran. He stumbled as the bullets exploded across his chest, and he pitched forward as his momentum carried him beyond his failing legs.

  Bolan swung around, ready to return fire. Two women, poorly concealed, with their rifles in plain view. He didn’t want to take out PWLA members, but they were leaving him little choice.

  Bolan took aim. He could only assume they were about to fire again. Davis’s voice cut through everything and made him stop short as his finger tensed on the trigger.

  “Colonel, no—that’s Shazana Yasmin.”

  The Executioner

  #359 Desperate Passage

  #360 Mission to Burma

  #361 Final Resort

  #362 Patriot Acts

  #363 Face of Terror

  #364 Hostile Odds

  #365 Collision Course

  #366 Pele’s Fire

  #367 Loose Cannon

  #368 Crisis Nation

  #369 Dangerous Tides

  #370 Dark Alliance

  #371 Fire Zone

  #372 Lethal Compound

  #373 Code of Honor

  #374 System Corruption

  #375 Salvador Strike

  #376 Frontier Fury

  #377 Desperate Cargo

  #378 Death Run

  #379 Deep Recon

  #380 Silent Threat

  #381 Killing Ground

  #382 Threat Factor

  #383 Raw Fury

  #384 Cartel Clash

  #385 Recovery Force

  #386 Crucial Intercept

  #387 Powder Burn

  #388 Final Coup

  #389 Deadly Command

  #390 Toxic Terrain

  #391 Enemy Agents

  #392 Shadow Hunt

  #393 Stand Down

  #394 Trial by Fire

  #395 Hazard Zone

  #396 Fatal Combat

  #397 Damage Radius

  #398 Battle Cry

  #399 Nuclear Storm

  #400 Blind Justice

  #401 Jungle Hunt

  #402 Rebel Trade

  #403 Line of Honor

  #404 Final Judgment

  #405 Lethal Diversion

  #406 Survival Mission

  #407 Throw Down

  #408 Border Offensive

  #409 Blood Vendetta

  #410 Hostile Force

  #411 Cold Fusion

  #412 Night’s Reckoning

  #413 Double Cross

  #414 Prison Code

  #415 Ivory Wave

  #416 Extraction

  #417 Rogue Assault

  #418 Viral Siege

  #419 Sleeping Dragons

  #420 Rebel Blast

  #421 Hard Targets

  #422 Nigeria Meltdown

  #423 Breakout

  #424 Amazon Impunity

  #425 Patriot Strike

  #426 Pirate Offensive

  #427 Pacific Creed

  #428 Desert Impact

  #429 Arctic Kill

  #430 Deadly Salvage

  #431 Maximum Chaos

  #432 Slayground

  #433 Point Blank

  #434 Savage Deadlock

  SAVAGE DEADLOCK

  Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

  —Abraham Lincoln,

  1809–1865

  Every person, man or woman, has the right to choose their path. I will join any fight to take down the oppressors of this world.

  —Mack Bolan

  THE

  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 One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  Shazana Yasmin looked out over the river as the evening faded into dusk. She loved coming back here to where her family had settled after the city life of Quetta had ceased to have any appeal. Her father was attached to the mountainous regions of Balochistan, Pakistan, close to the borders with Afghanistan and Iran, and had stubbornly refused to move back to civilization, even though the hilly terrain was n
ow dangerous to pass at times, as bandits and revolutionaries prowled the land.

  Despite this, she still saw it as a tranquil haven away from the city and the academic life that had enveloped her, and she liked to travel here when she could. Since her mother had passed away, her father had become more reclusive and curmudgeonly, allowing his sons to run the businesses that had bought them this palatial villa, nestled into the hills and overlooking the peacefully flowing river.

  As the dusk closed, so the insects became bolder, and their buzzing grew louder in her ears. Idly, she swatted them away, her thoughts far from the peace of the countryside.

  “Malaria, fever of some kind if they bite...then maybe hospitalization, which isn’t easy in the back end of beyond. I don’t know, maybe by the time they get you there, you’ll be dead. And think what a loss to humanity that would be. It doesn’t really bear thinking about.”

  “Go boil your head,” she answered without turning around.

  “That’s a fine way for a nicely brought up girl to speak to a man. Especially one who is her elder,” murmured her brother, who now settled himself on the veranda railing beside her, resting his arms so that he could lean out over the rocks below. “It’s a long way down,” he added.

  “Then you should make sure that you balance yourself on those ape arms of yours,” she replied, staring at his thick, hairy wrists. “I don’t know how you came to look like that, Mahmood. Dad is totally bald, and Mom—”

  “Was as delicate and beautiful as you are, Shaz,” he answered. “Not as prone to answering back and being disrespectful, but I blame that on your inevitable Westernization.”

  Her mouth fell open, and she prepared to abuse her brother even further before catching the spark of humor in his eyes and realizing she was being had.

  “Funny...you’re a very funny man,” she said with a slow nod. “Especially as you spend eight months of the year in Canada rather than Lahore, and you have even more of an accent than I do.”

  Mahmood Yasmin shrugged. “I like the West. It is what it is. Here...’ He paused. “Here there is no knowing. This is a country in flux, Shaz, and if Dad had any sense he’d sell up this place and join me in Toronto. It won’t be safe for him, soon. There’s a radicalism in the air that has no place for the likes of him. It has no time for the pragmatic man who seeks to make the best for his children, bending to the times in which he lives. It knows only its own unyielding standards.”

  “Dad’s not going to leave. It took him long enough to earn the money to build this place. All his memories of Mom are here. He’s not going to give them up easily.”

  “He may not have the choice. If he doesn’t give it up, then it’ll be snatched from him. This is a new dark age, Shaz, and he won’t be safe. Neither will you. You shouldn’t come back here anymore.”

  “Why not? You do,” she posited.

  Her brother gazed out over the river. “I have to. Someone has to look out for the old man. See that?” He indicated distant, winking lights downriver. “That’s the nearest villa. It’s got to be about twenty kilometers, right? And not on an easy road. Things could happen out here and not be discovered for a long time.”

  Yasmin shivered. “You’re scaring me.”

  “Good, I should be,” he answered bluntly. “Listen...’ He gestured her to silence, and for some time they stood listening to the quiet of the evening. The river ran beneath them, and they could hear their father in the house behind them, cooking dinner and mumbling to himself. The buzz of insects was a steady hum. Yasmin studied her brother with bemusement. He indicated that she listen harder.

  In the far distance, she could hear the crack of rifle fire.

  Mahmood nodded as he saw that she had registered the sound. “It’s there all the time, now. It’s so much a part of the background that you don’t notice it unless you actually stop and listen hard.”

  “But it’s miles away,” she said dismissively.

  “Is it? Sound travels across these hills, I know. It’s clear air. But even so, that means all sound. The gunfire is clear over a lot of other things. And there’s more of it every day. I won’t be happy until you’re out of here, Shaz. I don’t just mean this region, I mean the whole damned country. You shouldn’t have left MIT.”

  She shook her head sadly. “I would have thought you understood. This is my country, and I love it. It’s not perfect, I’ll grant you that, though I couldn’t say the U.S. is, either. Balochistan gave me a good education—”

  “It didn’t give it to you, Shaz. You earned it. You earned it because you’re a genius.”

  “Hardly.” She shrugged. “Though if you want to think that and treat me like a princess, then I’ll let you. Seriously, Mahmood, I really feel like I could make a difference here, help drag this land into the twenty-first century and put it up there with other nations.”

  He snorted with derision. “It’s being dragged into the twenty-first century all right, but not in the way you’re hoping. This world is undergoing a polarized split, and I’m not sure Pakistan is going to be on the right side of that.”

  “Then we have to fight to make sure that it is,” she said, her calm tone laced with steel. “It’s up to us to make sure that it falls the right way.”

  “Now you really do sound like Mom,” he said with a smile. “I’ll still be happier when you’re as far from the border as you can get, though.”

  They turned and went in, hearing their father’s call to dinner. Over the meal, neither sibling mentioned their discussion, although Yasmin was sure she could still hear the distant gunfire, even as she settled down for the night.

  It lulled her to sleep, but not for long.

  * * *

  YASMIN WAS DREAMING of MIT again. America had been good to her, and she had enjoyed her time there. Often, these days, she found that her dream world was populated by the faces and places of those days. Coming home to bring her specialist skills to the Pakistan authorities had been her aim, but it had soured as the bureaucracy and outmoded attitudes of those around her had taken their toll. Worse still had been the way that many had looked at her. In their eyes, despite the results she achieved, she was still “just” a woman.

  If this country was truly to drag itself into the twenty-first century, then there was still a long way to go. It was inevitable that shortcuts would have to be taken.

  A sudden noise jolted her out of her dream world, her heart thumping and her mouth dry. She lay there in the darkness, trying to stop her body from shaking as the adrenaline pumped through her veins.

  The door to her bedroom was pushed open, and by the light from the hallway outside she could see a small figure, face swathed in scarves, standing in the doorway. The figure was black against the light, though she could clearly see the outline of an assault rifle held at a downward angle. The fear came back up in her throat, like bile.

  Was this an enemy?

  It was only when the figure spoke in feminine tones that she felt herself relax.

  “It’s time. Hurry,” the figure said.

  As she withdrew into the hallway, Yasmin rose and began to dress quickly. She already had a bag packed, and within a couple of minutes she was ready to go. As she stepped into the hallway, the other woman beckoned her toward the large living room of the villa. Yasmin could see that there were four other women there, all of them armed. With rising alarm, she realized she could not see or hear her father or brother.

  “You said nothing would happen to them, just that it would be made to look like there had been a break-in,” she began, the anger in her voice tempered by an edge of fear. She quickened her pace and almost fainted with relief when she entered the room and saw her father and brother seated side by side on a long sofa, clutching teacups and looking bemused (her brother) and almost incandescently angry (her father).

  “Shazana, what is this?
” he began as he saw her and rose to his feet. “Why have these women come into my house with guns, and why are they asking for you?”

  Despite herself, Yasmin was amused. Even faced with weapons, her father showed no fear—he couldn’t believe that mere women would harm him. In this instance he was correct, but that was purely incidental.

  “Sit down, Dad, or someone might get nervous and fire one of these things,” she said, indicating the women’s rifles.

  “Sit down? Why should I sit down in my own home just because some little girl waves a gun in my face and wants to take my daughter away?” her father continued. Still, he allowed his son to gently grasp his arm and pull him down.

  “Dad, I’m not being taken anywhere that I don’t want to go,” she said softly. “You have to believe me when I say that.”

  Her father appeared confused, staring at the women with guns and then at his daughter. Mahmood, on the other hand, seemed to understand, even if his words were disapproving.

  “So this is what you meant when you said you wanted to make a difference? To go and join a group of rebels?”

  “There are rebels and there are rebels, Mahmood,” Yasmin said gently. “You said it yourself—it’s become a polarized world. If we want Pakistan to go one way rather than the other, then we have to try to make that difference ourselves.”

  “But why this?” he asked her. “Why the charade? Why not just go?”

  “And have people ask you questions that you cannot answer? Have them detain you and maybe do more than ask? I don’t want that to happen. What I know would push the government—and others—to take drastic actions. This way, it looks like I was taken against my will. How could you know anything if that was the case? It’s the best way I can think of to keep you and Dad safe. Now let me go, and tell anyone who comes calling about the guns. They always believe you if you’re at the point of a gun. It’s the only language they can understand...”

  Chapter Two

  “The National Command Authority will not be happy with this, General. Fortunately, it will not be my ass in a sling when they find out. That dubious pleasure will fall to you.”