Apocalypse Ark Read online

  WITHOUT MERCY

  It’s Judgment Day for the Church as militant members of a secret cult plot to destroy the Vatican and usher in the Apocalypse. These so-called soldiers of God arrive armed with a weapon of “divine power,” which they claim is the biblical Ark of the Covenant stolen from its holy shrine in Ethiopia. Their campaign to purge the earth of heretics has begun.

  As the cult’s hellish agenda spills blood in cities across the globe, panic spreads. Mack Bolan’s mandate becomes to neutralize the threat by direct means. His counterstrike begins on the ground in Ethiopia, tracking the murderous trail toward Rome. And he demands the ultimate sacrifice from those willing to kill for their faith—death by Executioner.

  “You’re after the Ark of the Covenant.”

  Bolan paused and studied the cleric. “You take that seriously?”

  “I hate to think the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church would perpetrate a fraud, mounting armed guards over nothing,” Halloran said, “but stranger things have happened.”

  “And you were sent to check it out,” Bolan prodded.

  “I submit to discipline and go where I am ordered. Where I can be useful.”

  “Well, you earned your pay tonight. I didn’t even know the Vatican had soldiers.”

  “Sometimes,” Halloran said, “the issues we confront are…extreme.”

  “Like an attack on the Vatican. Do you really think they’ve got some superweapon from the days of Moses?”

  “Even without it, zealots pose a threat to the faithful everywhere,” Halloran replied.

  “Bishop Astatke? I shot him,” Bolan said, “when he pulled a piece.”

  “A true believer—” the cleric nodded “—willing to kill and die for his faith.”

  “I’m not big on faith these days,” the Executioner replied, “but I’ve got the killing down.”

  Other titles available in this series:

  Sleepers

  Strike and Retrieve

  Age of War

  Line of Control

  Breached

  Retaliation

  Pressure Point

  Silent Running

  Stolen Arrows

  Zero Option

  Predator Paradise

  Circle of Deception

  Devil’s Bargain

  False Front

  Lethal Tribute

  Season of Slaughter

  Point of Betrayal

  Ballistic Force

  Renegade

  Survival Reflex

  Path to War

  Blood Dynasty

  Ultimate Stakes

  State of Evil

  Force Lines

  Contagion Option

  Hellfire Code

  War Drums

  Ripple Effect

  Devil’s Playground

  The Killing Rule

  Patriot Play

  Appointment in Baghdad

  Havana Five

  The Judas Project

  Plains of Fire

  Colony of Evil

  Hard Passage

  Interception

  Cold War Reprise

  Mission: Apocalypse

  Altered State

  Killing Game

  Diplomacy Directive

  Betrayed

  Sabotage

  Conflict Zone

  Blood Play

  Desert Fallout

  Extraordinary Rendition

  Devil’s Mark

  Savage Rule

  Infiltration

  Resurgence

  Kill Shot

  Stealth Sweep

  Grave Mercy

  Treason Play

  Assassin’s Code

  Shadow Strike

  Decision Point

  Road of Bones

  Radical Edge

  Fireburst

  Oblivion Pact

  Enemy Arsenal

  State of War

  Ballistic

  Escalation Tactic

  Crisis Diplomacy

  Don Pendleton’s

  Mack Bolan

  Apocalypse Ark

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to

  Michael Newton for his contribution to this work.

  Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind.

  —Voltaire

  Philosophical Dictionary

  I don’t judge any man according to his faith. They judge themselves when faith becomes their reason for persecuting and destroying others.

  —Mack Bolan

  For Lance Corporal Scott Olsen, USMC, Ret.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  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 NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Axum, Ethiopia

  Claudio Branca checked his watch, confirming that the midnight hour had struck. He spoke a single word into the slim stalk microphone attached to the small wireless headset he wore beneath a black knit stocking cap: “Procedere!”

  Proceed.

  No voices answered through the earpiece. All the members of his team were sworn to silence short of dire emergency, but Branca knew they would be moving in, as he and his companions were already moving through the darkness toward their target. Toward the goal that had obsessed them for the past twelve months and more.

  The Chapel of the Tablet stood adjacent to an older, larger structure, the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, erected by Ezana, the first Christian emperor of Ethiopia, around AD 340, renovated and rebuilt over the centuries as time and damage from the nation’s endless wars required. The Chapel of the Tablet, Branca’s target, was a relatively modern structure from the 1950s, built specifically to house an object of such power that the older church couldn’t contain it.

  Branca and his soldiers meant to steal that power for themselves—and for the higher cause they served.

  They’d come prepared, all dressed in black, with lightweight body armor underneath the trench coats that concealed their weapons. Each man on the team carried a Spectre M-4 submachine gun fitted with a sound suppressor, loaded with quad-column casket magazines containing fifty 9 mm Parabellum rounds. The Spectre’s double-action trigger let them leave their safeties disengaged with no fear of an accidental discharge. Extra magazines filled pouches on the belts that each man wore.

  Each member of the raiding party also wore a silenced Glock 17 pistol in shoulder rigging tailored for the individual, accommodating right- or left-hand shooters. As with the selection of their submachine guns, firepower and silence were the prime considerations. Nothing that could be planned out had been left to chance.

  Aside from weapons, each man also carried certain tools: bolt cutters, pry bars, hammers, drills, a battery-powered rotary saw with titanium blades. Unable to determine what
exactly they would find inside the Chapel of the Tablet, they had come prepared for anything except failure.

  Five vehicles were standing by within a thousand yards of the target. Three sedans were disguised as squad cars of the Ethiopian Federal Police, with uniformed drivers. The fourth was a heavy-duty pickup truck, complete with ramming bumpers and a small electric forklift riding in its bed, designed to lift a half ton if required. The fifth, a long-body cargo van with reinforced springs and shock absorbers, would carry the team and their prize to safety.

  Unless they were killed this night. In which case, another attempt would be made. And another, until success was finally achieved.

  But Branca didn’t plan to fail. He and the fourteen men he led, drivers included, had come prepared to sacrifice themselves for victory, and likewise, anyone who barred their way.

  The Chapel of the Tablet was a domed square with an ornate cross surmounting it, built out of granite blocks, with two tall windows in each wall, and one door at the front. Its grounds, modest in size, were surrounded by a wrought-iron fence with outward-curving spikes on top. Its only gate was chained and guarded constantly by members of the church armed with the same AKM assault rifles issued to infantrymen of the Ethiopian National Defense Force.

  No sound suppressors on those guns, meaning Branca and his men would have to drop the guards before they had a chance to fire or call for reinforcements. Four more guards were stationed inside the chapel proper, for rotation on the night shift, but they wouldn’t really be expecting any danger. Who in his right mind would try to storm the Chapel of the Tablet in the heart of Axum, after all?

  Nearing the gate, Claudio Branca clutched the Spectre underneath his coat, thinking, I would.

  * * *

  IT WAS AN honor to be chosen as sentry for the Chapel of the Tablet, Mamo Dego realized. A sacred trust, in fact. But it was boring, too. Despite his nation’s troubled history of war and rebellion, going back to the 1970s, no serious assault had been directed at the chapel. Even members of the far-left Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front had respected the church enough to leave its holiest of holies undisturbed, for fear of rousing public wrath.

  Why should this night be any different?

  Dego and Marcus Hersi were together on the gate for one more hour, watching cars pass by at ten- or fifteen-minute intervals, none of the midnight drivers slowing on Highway 3 to ogle the structure or adjoining church, much less pull in and stop. Their great excitement of the evening, so far, had come when three police cars passed, eastbound, and disappeared in the direction of Axum’s main market, a half mile farther on.

  Dego stifled a yawn, wished he could light a cigarette, but it was ruled unseemly for the chapel’s watchmen to be smoking in the public eye. What public? You could never tell when someone from the church might happen by—or be deliberately sent by the bishop to spy on the guards and report back any infractions observed.

  “What’s this?” Hersi asked, peering into darkness on the far side of the highway.

  Dego turned, followed his comrade’s gaze and saw a man emerging from the shadows, crossing toward the chapel. Seconds later, two more figures fell in step behind him, all three dressed identically in black knit caps and unbuttoned knee-length coats, black clothing underneath. Something about their faces struck him as peculiar. They were dark enough to pass inspection at a glance, but still...

  Could they be white men with their faces painted black?

  Dego rolled one shoulder to release his rifle from its slung position, cradling it and releasing the safety, wishing he had cocked it when he went on duty, so that there would be a live round in the chamber. There had been an incident some years before, however, where a shot was fired by accident. Now protocol dictated that no chapel guard could bear a weapon cocked and locked unless a threat was imminent.

  And Dego was worried that he might have lost his chance.

  The foremost of the three approaching men surprised the guard by calling out in Amharic, the official language of the nation, “What time does the chapel open, please?”

  A foolish question, since the Chapel of the Table never opened to outsiders, but the stranger’s tone was courteous enough. Dego opened his mouth to answer, then froze as he saw a weapon rising from beneath the trench coat, its muzzle bulky with the fat extension of a silencer.

  You never hear the shot that kills you.

  Mamo Dego had to have heard that said a hundred times, at least, during his military service.

  Now, with nearly silent bullets ripping through his chest, he found that it was almost true.

  * * *

  TWO SENTRIES DOWN, and Branca watched the front door of the chapel while Fontana used his bolt cutters to clip the chain securing the wrought-iron gate. The fallen guards had dropped without a sound, besides the clatter of their weapons onto pavement, and a few more seconds would see Branca’s team inside the fence. Already, reinforcements were approaching, nine in all, their blackened faces stoic, weapons at the ready.

  As the severed chain rattled to the ground, Branca announced into his microphone that they were through the gate, the message alerting his drivers to be ready with their vehicles. The pickup wouldn’t have to ram the fence, but they might still require its forklift if the item they were seeking proved too heavy. The counterfeit patrol cars were prepared to intercept and deal with any actual police who turned up on the scene. The van would wait its turn to carry them away, arriving on command.

  Branca led his strike team toward the chapel, proudly taking point for the assault. They’d learned that guards required no key to enter or exit the building. Its door was left unlocked, the chapel’s custodians trusting the fence, the sentries and the wrath of God to keep its contents safe. But none of those would help this night.

  A guard was seated in the chapel’s narthex, startled to his feet as Branca entered, then collapsing as the Spectre M-4 whispered death into his ear and turned the beige wall crimson. The other three watchmen, huddled in the nave, had been conversing in hushed tones, and were responding to the clatter of their comrade’s dying in the narthex when Branca and company surprised them.

  With no quarter asked or given, Branca shot the nearest of them as the guard reached for his weapon. Other muted SMGs cut down the rest in seconds flat. No clamoring alarms betrayed them to the world outside.

  So far, so good.

  The chapel’s vault lay dead ahead of them, beyond the chancel, apse and altar. This was where the plan risked breaking down, since neither Branca, his superiors, nor anyone he’d managed to suborn along the way had ever seen the object they were sent to claim. It might be the size of a trunk or a small compact car. It could weigh fifty pounds or twenty times as much.

  Branca did know about the vault, its door secured by an older-model combination lock. One of his soldiers, Franco Arieti, was an expert cracksman, well equipped this night with fifteen years’ experience, a stethoscope, Semtex plastique with detonators, and a thermal lance for use if all else failed. As fate would have it, though, his basic talents were enough to crack the aged box.

  It was Branca’s honor to open the heavy door, his thrill to be the first man from his team inside the vault. He was prepared for anything, somewhat surprised by the reality of what confronted him. After an awestruck moment, Branca turned to face his men.

  “Michele, you’re with me,” he said. “The rest of you, let’s find out what it weighs.”

  Four men for each of two short poles designed to aid in moving what they’d come for, built along the pattern of an old-fashioned sedan chair. Branca watched them grip the poles, then put their backs into it, raising the object six inches, then a full foot from its concrete base.

  Perfect!

  “Rocco, stand down,” Branca said, speaking through his stalk mike to the night outside. “The forklift won’t be needed. Enzo,
bring the van. The rest of you, routine patrol in the vicinity. Be ready for intruders.”

  Orders given, Branca focused on his soldiers and their burden, smiling for the first time that he could remember during recent weeks. Eight pairs of eyes watched him expectantly.

  “Come on,” he said at last. “It’s time to go and meet our destiny.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  Bole Airport ranked among the busiest in Africa, logging flights for nearly four million passengers yearly, while moving two and a half million tons of cargo. Its single runway was the continent’s longest, at 15,502 feet, and the airport’s relatively new passenger terminal, opened in January 2003, was fully air-conditioned for travelers’ comfort, boasting numerous duty-free shops, restaurants, even banking facilities.

  None of that mattered to Mack Bolan as he deplaned from his British Midland International flight at 2:15 p.m. local time. He traveled light, a midsized carry-on his only bag, and cleared customs without a hitch. The officer who stamped his passport welcomed Matthew Cooper to Ethiopia with the approximation of a smile and waved him on.

  Why not? The passport was legit in all respects, except for Bolan’s travel name. The home address existed, in the form of a Manhattan mail drop, where the bills for Matt Cooper’s credit cards arrived, were forwarded and always paid on time. Cooper’s credit history was excellent.

  From customs, Bolan found a currency exchange, trading dollars for Ethiopian birr, then walked on to the Avis booth, to claim the rental car he had reserved before departing the States. The smile he got this time was slightly more sincere, but still reserved. He was a stranger to this land, marked by his nationality, his accent and the pigment of his skin. What should a white American arriving in the capital of Ethiopia expect?

  His rental car was a black four-door Holland Tekeze hatchback, locally produced by Ethiopia’s first auto assembly plant. As in the States, the car and roads were left-hand drive, so no mental change-up was necessary as he slid behind the wheel, turned the ignition key and exited the Avis section of the parking lot.