Damage Radius Read online

  Rifle rounds followed Bolan

  They kicked up dirt and grass all around him, lodging in the tree trunk as he popped back to his feet behind the pine tree.

  Bolan stared in the moonlight, following the angle of the shots back to a man who stood partially out of the guard shack, wielding an M-16.

  He aimed, pulled the trigger of his gun and sent two rounds into the guard’s shoulder, causing him to drop his weapon. A look of shock covered the man’s face for an instant before Bolan squeezed the trigger again, and the man fell out of the shack onto the pavement.

  Bolan leaned out from around the tree trunk and sighted down the barrel. A lone round took out the second man at the gate. The third sentry was still hiding inside the small building, covered from the waist down by concrete but visible through the glass in the top of the window.

  He aimed at the man’s head and pulled the trigger. His slug struck the glass then ricocheted off with a loud whine. The window was bullet resistant—but nothing was completely bullet proof.

  Bolan left the cover of the tree and raced toward the open door of the shack. The final sentry was squatting with his gun in hand, looking straight at him as Bolan fired his weapon. In the end, all of the concrete and bullet-resistant glass in the world hadn’t helped him, and the guard fell on his face just as dead as the others.

  The yard grew silent. Then, in the distance, Bolan heard sirens and he knew that the fighting had raised alarms.

  The Executioner had to get away. Fast.

  MACK BOLAN®

  The Executioner

  #322 Time Bomb

  #323 Soft Target

  #324 Terminal Zone

  #325 Edge of Hell

  #326 Blood Tide

  #327 Serpent’s Lair

  #328 Triangle of Terror

  #329 Hostile Crossing

  #330 Dual Action

  #331 Assault Force

  #332 Slaughter House

  #333 Aftershock

  #334 Jungle Justice

  #335 Blood Vector

  #336 Homeland Terror

  #337 Tropic Blast

  #338 Nuclear Reaction

  #339 Deadly Contact

  #340 Splinter Cell

  #341 Rebel Force

  #342 Double Play

  #343 Border War

  #344 Primal Law

  #345 Orange Alert

  #346 Vigilante Run

  #347 Dragon’s Den

  #348 Carnage Code

  #349 Firestorm

  #350 Volatile Agent

  #351 Hell Night

  #352 Killing Trade

  #353 Black Death Reprise

  #354 Ambush Force

  #355 Outback Assault

  #356 Defense Breach

  #357 Extreme Justice

  #358 Blood Toll

  #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

  Don Pendleton’s

  The Executioner®

  DAMAGE RADIUS

  The laws are silent in the midst of arms.

  —Marcus Tullius Cicero

  106 BC–43 BC

  I will go around the law to catch the bad guys, if I have to. And I will break the law to stop them, if all else fails. I will do what needs to get done—whenever, wherever, however.

  —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

  Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, lowered his left elbow slightly, stopping a right jab to the ribs from his left-handed opponent. He countered with a quick right cross which was also blocked. Slowly, the two men circled, sizing each other up and looking for weaknesses in the other’s defense. A fierce left hook came suddenly toward the Executioner’s face but he ducked under it, bobbing slightly to the side. In his mind, it registered that the southpaw he faced had dropped his left shoulder before delivering the blow. As well, Bolan realized the man had telegraphed the hook the same way each time he’d tried that punch.

  The left hook was obviously the man’s favored attack, and the pressure Bolan had felt when it landed on his arms told him it was powerful. Full of strength, and speed, the man could easily knock out an opponent if it landed solidly.

  So, the soldier decided, it was time to set the man up and take advantage of his “tell.”

  Bolan backed away slightly, letting his opponent move closer. He ducked a wild right-handed “haymaker,” then bobbed under another jab that followed it. Then, intentionally raising his left, he opened up his rib cage for the hook he hoped to draw from the other man.

  It worked as if by magi
c.

  Sweat poured from the other man’s face as he dipped his shoulder in preparation to launch the hook.

  Bolan didn’t give him the chance. Stepping in swiftly, he dealt his opponent a powerful overhand right, which nailed the man squarely in the middle of the forehead. The man stumbled backward. Bolan shuffled closer again, jabbing a left into the man’s midsection, which caused him to drop both of his hands.

  It was time to end this fight.

  Bolan put everything he had—arm, shoulder and a twist of the right hip—into the right cross.

  His opponent was out before his face hit the canvas.

  Quickly, Bolan stepped forward, saw that the man was breathing, then turned toward the ropes that encircled the boxing ring. Everyone else in the gym had halted their workouts in order to watch the match, and they stared up at Bolan with a mixture of surprise and newfound respect in their eyes. Bolan walked to the edge of the ring and rested his gloved hands on the top rope.

  “Okay,” he said. “I know you guys liked the former manager of this gym. I did, too. But he’s dead, and there’s nothing any of us can do about that.” He paused, then motioned toward the unconscious man on the floor. “Jake, here, challenged me because all of you wanted to know if I knew what I was doing.” He turned his head to include more men who had come to the ring on the other sides of the canvas. “Is there anyone here still wondering?” When there was no response from the spectators, Bolan went on. “Come on. I’m just getting warmed up. If there’s anyone else who wants a piece of me, now’s your chance.”

  The silence that had fallen over the gym didn’t change, and no one took the Executioner up on his offer.

  It soon became obvious that there would be no more challengers. “Then get back to your training, all of you,” he said. Lifting the top rope, he stepped under it before dropping to the gym’s concrete floor. Using his teeth, he untied the lace on his right glove, then pulled it free and tucked it under his arm as he went to work on the left.

  As he began unlacing the other glove, Bolan’s eyes skirted the gym, taking in the men of various ages, sizes and abilities who had returned to the speed bags, heavy bags, double ended striking balls, jump ropes and other equipment. Most of them were innocent, honest fighters who were doing nothing more than trying to achieve their own personal dreams of success in the ring. But, unknowingly, they were actually part of one of the most extensive criminal organizations operating in the United States.

  The Executioner eyed them again as he wiped a single drop of sweat from his brow with his forearm. This was only the starting point for the mission he had undertaken. And he was certain to engage in many more fights as he worked his way toward the goal of taking down Tommy McFarley’s criminal organization.

  But there was one point about the fight he had just won that stood out in the Executioner’s mind as unique.

  It was likely to be the only skirmish with rules, without weapons and without blood.

  The Executioner was going to war yet again.

  2

  As the rat-tat-tat of the speed bags filled his ears like machine-gun fire, Bolan walked from the ring to the glass wall of his new office. Tossing the gloves he had just removed to a man on his way to the water fountain, he pushed the door open and left the gym proper. Through the glass, he could still hear the speed bags, the crunching of the canvas bags and the tapping of jump ropes as the door swung closed behind him.

  The Executioner looked at his desk as he moved toward it. It was cluttered with the personal effects of Sy Lennon, the former manager of McFarley’s New Orleans gym. But Lennon would not be back to collect them.

  He, along with a middleweight named Bobby “the Killer” Kiethley, was dead. Their bodies had not yet been found, and Bolan suspected they never would be.

  The rumor was that three of Tommy McFarley’s henchmen had dropped them out of one of McFarley’s private aircraft somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico. Their crime? Not throwing a fight that McFarley had “fixed,” and upon which he had consequently lost close to a million dollars in bets.

  Bolan spied an empty cardboard box thrown carelessly into the corner of the office and quickly retrieved it. Without ceremony, he used his forearm to sweep the desktop clear. Papers, paperweights, a brass clip in the shape of a whale and a small plastic “Snoopy” wearing boxing gloves fell into the box. Returning the carton to the corner of the room, the Executioner dropped it and took a seat behind the desk.

  For a moment, he stared out through the glass at the men still working out in the gym. New Orleans was the center of McFarley’s operations, but his chain of boxing and body-building/power-lifting gyms stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They were the “front,” and the money-laundering operations, for his real businesses, which included international drug trafficking, arms dealing, gambling and white-slavery prostitution throughout the Western Hemisphere.

  Bolan glanced at the scarred black rotary telephone that was now the sole object on his desk. It was a throwback to an earlier era, and the chances of it being tapped by McFarley were slim. Still, there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks, so the soldier leaned down to the gym bag he had dropped by the desk chair when he’d first arrived a few hours earlier. Fishing through the clothing and other contents, he found a smaller, zippered bag that contained both cell and satellite phones. Choosing the cell, he pulled it from the bag and tapped in the number to Stony Man Farm, the top-secret U.S. site that fielded counterterrorist teams and trained specially picked soldiers and police officers from America and its allied nations. The call was automatically routed through a number of cutout numbers on three continents on the offchance that someone—someone like McFarley—had stumbled onto the frequency.

  Barbara Price, the Farm’s mission controller, answered the phone. “Hello, Striker,” she said. “How’s training?”

  Bolan chuckled softly. “Barely worked up a sweat yet,” he told the beautiful honey-blonde. He pictured her briefly in his mind. He and Price had a “special relationship” reserved for those rare occasions during which he was out of the field and spent the night at the Farm. But both were true professionals, and they never allowed that relationship to interfere with their work. “Had to prove myself a few minutes ago,” Bolan went on.

  “I doubt it lasted a full round,” Price said.

  “About a minute or so,” the soldier replied. “I didn’t see any reason to show off.” He paused, then got to the point of the call. “Can you buzz me through to Hal?”

  “I could,” Price said. “But it wouldn’t do you much good. He’s at Justice today.”

  Hal Brognola wore two hats. In one role, he was the director of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm. But in another, he was a high-ranking official within the U.S. Department of Justice. “I’ll call him there, then,” Bolan told Price.

  “Good luck and be careful.”

  “Always,” he said and ended the call.

  A moment later he had dialed the numbers to the big Fed’s direct line at the Justice Department. A gruff voice answered. “Brognola.”

  “Striker here.”

  “Hello, big guy,” Hal Brognola said after turning on the scrambler. “How’s the new job?”

  “Terrific,” Bolan answered. “If you like starting at the bottom. I’m in, but I’m still a long way from McFarley’s real action. Unless we can figure out a way to speed things up, it’s going to take me a lifetime to get next to the man.”

  “You haven’t met McFarley, himself, yet, have you?” Brognola asked.

  “No,” Bolan said. “I was interviewed and got hired by one of his goons. It seems the big man doesn’t dirty himself with small jobs like hiring gym managers.”

  “Well,” Brognola said, “I’ve got something else working right now that ought to lead to a meeting. The same undercover DEA agent who’s managing McFarley’s gym in Cleveland—the guy I went through to get you in there in New Orleans—has let a few things ‘slip’ about your less-
than-spotless past. It shouldn’t take long for loose lips to reach McFarley’s ears that you’ve run both guns and dope in the past, and that you’re just trying to keep a low profile by managing boxers for a while.”

  “Your DEA man in Cleveland,” Bolan asked. “How much does he know?”

  “Not much. He’s a good man. He understands the need-to-know concept and realizes he doesn’t need to know anything past recommending you, alias ‘Matt Cooper’ of course, for the New Orleans job.”

  “You think this rumor-passing stunt is going to work?” Bolan asked.

  “I think so,” Brognola said. “Guys like McFarley are always on the lookout for men with Matt Cooper’s experience.”

  A tap on the glass door to his office caused Bolan to look up. When he did, he saw a man wearing striped overalls and a tool belt, with a paint can in his hand. Bolan knew what he was there to do, and he nodded.

  The man in the overalls set the can down, pulled a razor-bladed paint scraper from his tool belt and began scraping Sy Lennon’s name off the glass door. In its place, he would paint Bolan’s undercover ID—Matt Cooper.

  “Okay,” Bolan said, turning his attention back to the phone. “I guess all I can do right now is wait.”

  “It shouldn’t take long,” Brognola came back.

  Without further words, Bolan disconnected the line.

  He looked up again just in time to see a blurry form through the glass. It shoved the man in the overalls aside and pushed through the door.

  Jake Jackson, the fighter the Executioner had KO’d only a few minutes earlier, strode angrily into the office. A cotton ball was shoved into his left nostril and flecks of dried blood still stuck to the skin around his nose. A welt was forming on his forehead between his eyes, and while he’d lost the boxing gloves from his hands, dirty-white tape was still wrapped around his palm and wrists.