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  So, they might think he had dropped a load of drugs.

  And then what?

  It was sixty-forty that they'd order someone to investigate the theoretical drop zone, which meant relaying orders from headquarters to some outpost in the field. Maybe the brass in Lagos would reach out to their subordinates in Warri, who in turn would form a squad to roll out, have a look around, then report on what they found.

  Which should be nothing.

  If they went looking for drugs, they'd check the area where Grimaldi had turned his plane, then backtrack for a while along his flight path, coming or going, to see if they'd missed anything. There were no drugs to find, so they'd go home empty-handed and pissed off at wasting their time.

  But if they weren't looking for drugs...

  He knew the search might be conducted differently if the Nigerians went looking for intruders. Whether they were educated on HALO techniques or not, they had to know that men manipulating parachutes could travel farther than a bale of cargo dropping from the sky, and that the men, once having landed, wouldn't wait around for searchers to locate them.

  It would be a different game, then, with a different cast of players. MOPOL still might be involved, but it was also possible that Bolan could be up against the State Security Service, the Defense Intelligence Agency or the competing National Intelligence Agency. The SSS was Nigeria's FBI, in effect, widely accused of domestic political repression, while the NIA was equivalent to America's CIA, and the DIA handled military intelligence.

  In the worst-case scenario, Grimaldi supposed that all three agencies might decide to investigate his drop-in, with MOPOL agents thrown in for variety. And how many hunters could Bolan evade before his luck ran out?

  Grimaldi's long experience with Bolan, starting as a kidnap "victim" and continuing thereafter as a friend and willing ally, had taught him not to underestimate the Executioner's abilities. No matter what the odds arrayed against him, the Sarge had always managed to emerge victorious.

  So far.

  But he was only human, after all.

  One hell of a human, for sure, but still human.

  Grimaldi trusted Bolan to succeed, no matter the task he was assigned. But if he fell along the way, revenge was guaranteed.

  The pilot swore it on his soul, whatever that was worth.

  He didn't know jackshit about Nigeria, beyond the obvious. It was a state in Africa, beset by poverty — yet oil rich — disease and chaos verging on the point of civil war, where he would stand out like a sore white thumb. But the official language was English, because of former colonial rule, so he wouldn't be stranded completely.

  And if Bolan didn't make it out, Grimaldi would be going on a little hunting trip.

  An African safari, right.

  He owed the big guy that, at least.

  And Jack Grimaldi always paid his debts.

  * * *

  Touchdown was better than Bolan had any right to expect after stepping out of an airplane and plummeting more than 24,000 feet to Earth. He bent his knees, tucked and rolled as they'd taught him at Green Beret jump school back in the old days, and came up with only a few minor bruises to show for the leap.

  Only bruises so far.

  Step two was covering his tracks and getting out of there before some hypothetical pursuer caught his scent and turned his drop into a suicide mission.

  Bolan took it step by step, with all due haste. He shed the parachute harness first thing, along with his combat webbing and weapons. Next, he stripped off the jumpsuit that had saved him from frostbite while soaring, but which now felt like a baked potato's foil wrapper underneath the Nigerian sun. That done, he donned the combat rigging once again and went to work.

  Fourth step, reel in the parachute and all its lines, compacting same into the smallest bundle he could reasonably manage. That done, he unsheathed his folding shovel and began to dig.

  It didn't have to be a deep grave, necessarily. Just deep enough to hide his jumpsuit, helmet, bottled oxygen and mask, the chute and rigging. If some kind of nylon-eating scavenger he'd never heard of came along and dug it up that night, so be it. Bolan would be long gone by that time, his mission either a success or a resounding, fatal failure.

  More than depth, he would require concealment for the burial, in case someone came sniffing after him within the next few hours. To that end, he dug his dump pit in the shadow of a looming mahogany some thirty paces from the clearing where he'd landed, and spent precious time re-planting ferns he had disturbed during the excavation when he'd finished.

  It wasn't perfect — nothing man-made ever was — but it would do.

  He had a four-mile hike ahead of him, through forest that had so far managed to escape the logger's ax and chainsaw. As he understood it from background research, Nigeria, once in the heart of West Africa's rain forest belt, had lost ninety-five percent of its native tree cover and now imported seventy-five percent of the lumber used in domestic construction. Some conservationists believed that there would be no forests left in the country by 2020, a decade and change down the road toward Doomsday.

  That kind of slash-and-burn planning was seen throughout Africa, in agriculture, mineral prospecting, environmental protection, disease control — you name it. The native peoples once ruled and exploited by cruel foreign masters now seemed hell-bent on turning their ancestral homeland into a vision of post-apocalyptic hell, sacrificing Mother Nature on the twin altars of profit and national pride.

  Of course, the foreigners were still involved, and if they didn't always have traditional white faces, they were every bit as rapacious as Belgium's old King Leopold or Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm. Africa still had treasures to steal or buy cheaply, and Nigeria's main claim to fame was petroleum.

  Which brought Bolan's mind back front and center to his mission as he slogged through a forest whose upper canopy steamed, while its floor lay in warm, muggy shade.

  The oil rush was on in Nigeria, had been for years now, and like any mineral boom, it spawned winners and losers. The haves and have-nots. In Nigeria's case, the have-nots — or rather, some of them — had taken up arms to demand a piece of the action. Barring concessions that pleased them, they aimed to make life untenable for the haves.

  Which led to Bolan traveling halfway around the world, sleeping on planes and later jumping out of one to drop from more than four miles high and land on hostile ground where he'd be hunted by both sides, if either one detected him.

  All for a young woman he'd never met or heard of previously, whom he'd never really get to know, and whom he'd never see again if he pulled off the job at hand and saved her life.

  The really weird part, from a "normal" individual's perspective, was that none of it seemed strange to Bolan. Hell, it wasn't even new. The maps and faces changed, of course, but it was what Mack Bolan did.

  Well, some of what he did.

  The rest of it was killing, plain but often far from simple. He'd received the Executioner nickname the hard way, earning it. A few had nearly rivaled Bolan's record as a sniper when he wore his country's uniform.

  As for the rest, forget it.

  If there was another fighting man or woman who could match his body count since Bolan had retired from military service to pursue a one-man war, it ranked among the best-kept secrets of all time.

  He had a job to do, now, in Nigeria. Helping a total stranger out of trouble.

  And there would be blood.

  Chapter Two

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  Thirty-three hours prior to touchdown in Nigeria, Bolan had cruised along Skyline Drive in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, watching the marvels of nature scroll past his windows. As always, he knew that the drive was only the start of another long journey.

  His destination that morning wasn't the end.

  It was a launching pad.

  He blanked that out and took the Blue Ridge drive for what it was: a small slice of serenity within a life comprising primarily tension, violent
action and occasional side trips into Bizarro Land.

  Bolan enjoyed the drive, the trees and ferns flanking the two-lane blacktop, and the chance of seeing deer or other wildlife while en route. He'd never been a hunter in the "sporting" sense, and while he'd never thought of carrying a placard for the other side, it pleased him to see animals alive and well, wearing the skins or feathers they were born with.

  When you'd dropped the hammer on enough men, he supposed, the "game" of killing lost its dubious appeal.

  But stalking human predators, well, that was Bolan's job. And it would never end, as long as he survived.

  So be it. He had made a choice, in full knowledge that there could be no turning back, no change of mind or heart once the decision was translated into action. Bolan was the Executioner, and always would be.

  War without end. Amen.

  Which didn't mean he couldn't stop and smell the roses when he had the opportunity. What was he fighting for, if not the chance to lead a better and more peaceful life?

  Of course, he fought for others. Sacrificed his future, in effect. There'd be no wife and kiddies, no white picket fence, no РТА meetings or Christmas parties at the nine-to-five office. No pension or gold watch when he'd put in his time.

  Just death.

  And he'd already had a preview of his own, stage-managed in Manhattan by the same folks who had built the installation that lay five or six miles down the scenic route.

  Mack Bolan was no more.

  Long live the Executioner.

  * * *

  Bolan cleared security without a hitch. He passed a tractor harrowing one of the fields on his left as he drove toward the main house. Stony Man was a working farm, which paid some of the bills and supported its cover, since aerial photos would show cultivated fields and farmhands pursuing their normal duties.

  Those photos wouldn't reveal that the workers were extremely motivated cops and members of America's elite military teams — Navy SEALs, Special Forces, Army Rangers, Marine Corps Force Recon — who spent duty rotations at Stony Man under a lifetime oath of secrecy. All armed. All dangerous.

  There were risks involved in spying on Stony Man Farm. Each aircraft passing overhead was monitored on radar and by other means. If one appeared too nosy, there were means for dealing with the problem.

  They included Stinger ground-to-air missiles and a dowdy-looking single-wide mobile home planted in the middle of the Farm's airstrip. If friendly aircraft were expected, a tractor pulled the mobile home aside to permit landing. If intruders tried to land uninvited, the trailer not only blocked the runway, but could drop its walls on hinges to reveal quad-mounted TM-134 miniguns, each six-barreled weapon capable of firing four thousand 7.62 mm rounds per second.

  Fifty yards out from the farmhouse, Bolan recognized Hal Brognola and Barbara Price waiting for him on the wide front porch. A couple of young shirtless warriors in blue jeans and work boots were painting the upper story of the house, a procedure that Bolan had never observed before. He caught Price glancing his way and couldn't help smiling.

  The home team waited for him where they stood. Bolan climbed the three porch steps and shook their hands in turn. Price's greeting was professional, giving no hint of all the times they'd shared a bed in his upstairs quarters at the Farm, when he was passing through.

  "Good trip?" Brognola asked, as always.

  "Uneventful," Bolan answered.

  "That's the best kind. Join us in the War Room?"

  Bolan nodded, then followed Brognola and Price inside.

  The War Room occupied roughly one-quarter of the farmhouse's basement level. It was basically a high-tech conference room, with all the audiovisual bells and whistles, but Brognola had always called it the War Room, since discussions held around its meeting table always ended with an order to destroy some target that duly constituted authorities found themselves unable to touch by legitimate means.

  Sooner or later, it came down to war.

  Bolan supposed that somewhere in the Farm's computer database there was a tally of the lives that had been terminated based on orders issued in that room. Bolan had never made a point of keeping score, and didn't plan on starting now, but sometimes he got curious.

  The Farm wasn't his sole preserve. It issued orders to the fighting men of Able Team and Phoenix Force, as well, while dabbling here and there in God knew what covert attempts by other agencies to hold the savages at bay. Sometimes — most times — it worked, but only in the short-term. In the long war of Good versus Evil, whoever laid down the ground rules, there was no final victory, no irredeemable defeat.

  There was only the struggle.

  And it was about to resume.

  Aaron Kurtzman — "the Bear" to his friends — was waiting when they reached the War Room, seated in the motorized wheelchair that was his chief mode of conveyance since a bullet in the back had left him paralyzed from the waist down. That had occurred during a raid on Stony Man, initiated by a traitor in the upper levels of the CIA, and it accounted for the ultrastrict security that cloaked the Farm today.

  "I won't ask you about your trip," Kurtzman said, smiling as he put the crunch on Bolan's hand.

  Brognola humphed at that, making the others smile, then said, "Consistency's a virtue."

  "Absolutely," Price told him as she took her usual seat. "No one would ever doubt your virtue, Hal."

  "In my day, civilized discourse required amenities," Brognola said. "But hey, screw it. Let's get to work, shall we?"

  "Sounds good," Bolan replied, smiling.

  "What do you know about Nigeria?" Brognola asked.

  "It's in West Africa," Bolan said. "Ruled by France, then Britain, until independence in the early sixties. Trouble with Biafra in the same decade. There's oil, and everybody wants it. Drugs, coming and going. Tribal conflict verging on a civil war at times, and throw in some religious upheaval. Advance-fee frauds that go around the world through e-mail. Bribes are the order of the day, never mind corruption. That's it, in a nutshell."

  "You've hit all the basics," the big Fed acknowledged. "Are you up to speed on MEND?"

  "Guerrillas. Terrorists. The acronym escapes me at the moment," Bolan said.

  "You're still well ahead of the norm," Brognola said. "It's the Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta, waging armed resistance against the federal government and foreign oil companies. You've heard of Marion King Hubbert?"

  "No," Bolan replied. "Can't say I have."

  "No sweat. He died in 1989," the big Fed stated. "A geo-physicist with Shell Oil, out of Houston, best known for his theories on capacity of oil and natural gas reserves. It boils down to what they call Hubbert Peak Theory."

  "Which is?" Bolan coaxed.

  "Bare bones, the idea that Earth and every part of it have finite petro-gas reserves. Extraction supposedly follows a bell curve, increasing until pumping hits the 'Hubbert peak,' and then declining after that."

  "Sounds right," Bolan replied. "They aren't making any more dinosaurs."

  "So true," Brognola said. "Anyway, the word from so-called experts at State is that MEND wants to create an 'artificial Hubbert peak,' whatever the hell that means. I don't claim to understand it, but one of MEND's spokesmen — a character calling himself Major-General Godswill Tammo — says the group plans to seize total control of the oil reserves in Delta State."

  "How are they doing so far?" Bolan asked.

  "They haven't captured any fields or pumping stations, but it's not for lack of trying," Brognola replied. "Their main deal, at the moment, is attacking pipelines, storage tanks, whatever they can reach. Also, they're big on snatching CEOs and members of their families, whenever they can find an opening. Which brings us to the job at hand."

  Bolan sat quietly, waiting.

  "Bear, if you please," the big Fed prompted.

  A screen behind Brognola came to life, displaying a candid photo of a ruddy-faced, balding corporate type wearing a tailored suit that Bolan knew was expensive.


  "Jared Ross," Brognola said by way of introduction. "He's an executive V.P. in charge of production for K-Tech Petroleum, based in Warri. That's a Delta State oil town, with roughly one-fifth of the state's four-point-seven million people. Most of the foreign oil companies working in Nigeria have their headquarters in Warri, operating refineries at Ekpan, more or less next door."

  Bolan made the connection, saying, "He's been kidnapped?"

  "Not exactly. First, some background on the local tribes. They're mainly Itsekiri and Ijaw, with Ijaw outnumbering the Itsekiri something like nine million to four hundred and fifty thousand Anyway, for centuries they seemed to get along okay, but back in 1997 some genius in Lagos created an Ijaw government council, then put its headquarters in the heart of Itsekiri turf, in Warri. Maybe the result was intentional. Who knows? Long story short, when the smoke cleared, hundreds were dead and half a dozen petro installations had been occupied by rebels, cutting back production until soldiers took them out. MEND got its start from there, and in addition to the oil issue, you now have tribal warfare going full-blast in a region where they once had peace."

  Kurtzman spoke up, saying, "Beware the Feds who say, 'We're here to help.'"

  "Which would be us, in this case," Brognola replied. "Except the government in Lagos doesn't know it, and we weren't invited."

  "What's the angle?" Bolan asked.

  "You nearly had it when you asked if Jared Ross was kidnapped. It's his daughter," Brognola elaborated as another photo filled the screen.

  Bolan saw a young woman in her late teens, maybe early twenties, smiling for the camera. She was blond and blue-eyed, fresh-faced, living the American dream. Bolan hoped it hadn't turned into a dead-end nightmare.

  "How long ago?" he asked.