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  “What happened after that?”

  “Ali says the next day the Mahdi was gone, that it was like a dream. They spent the day purifying themselves according to the juramentado code, fasting, praying and burnishing their weapons. That night, they loaded canoes into a small cargo vessel and began their approach on you. They deployed the canoes about ten miles out and from the other side of the island where you were moored. They had exact intel on where you were. That’s all we got.”

  Bolan knew it wasn’t enough. “What about Ali’s protectors in prison? Has Philippine intelligence gotten anything on them?”

  “Yeah, I got a call from the Bear. We know exactly one thing.”

  Bolan closed his eyes. “They’re gone,” he said.

  “Yeah, like ghosts. The prison officials identified three men, and it’s as if they just walked out. What’s more, their prison identities were false. Neither we nor the Philippine police have any idea who these guys really were.”

  “They had inside help.”

  “No doubt, but getting all the guards and prison employees interrogated is going to take time we don’t have, even if we can get it done.” Calvin James rolled his shoulders. “Mack, did Pol talk to you about recidivism?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I called you two in, to make sure that didn’t happen.”

  “Ali’s words were this Mahdi SOB looked like an angel and spoke like God. It’ll be a classic fallen disciple and charismatic leader confrontation. We can’t guarantee what’s going to happen if they meet again. He could snap back.”

  “I thought you said you trusted him.”

  “I said I liked him, but I don’t like this situation.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it now. The ball is in play. Where’s my yacht?” Bolan asked.

  “It’s in Zamboanga, just north of the Sulu Archipelago. All battle damage has been repaired, and the retrofitting is complete. Three complete warloads arrived in Manila this morning. Everything’s ready.” James poured himself another cup of coffee. “What did you and Ming get out of the Megawatti kid?”

  “Not much. Isfan’s father and the Red League are none too happy about a rival pirate faction. Ming dropped a dime on Rustam, and the Pirate King of the South China Sea was willing to deal to get his son back. This group has done more than just poach his territory, they’ve hit his pirates directly, taking several of his ships and wiping out his men. Three times this month, alone, in the Malacca Strait.”

  “The Malacca Strait.” James sighed into his coffee. “That stretch of water has been pirate central since the Middle Ages.”

  “That’s right. That’s why Megawatti is going to spill it in certain circles that he’s after a man on a yacht who will be sailing the strait within the week.”

  “A week? You’re going to sail a thousand miles in a week?”

  “No, we’re going to stuff the yacht into a C-147 out of Darwin and fly it to Singapore. Should be there in forty-eight hours.”

  James eyed Bolan critically. “As the medic on this team, I recommend you take forty-eight hours of downtime while Ali gets himself caught and Pol comes back with the seaplane.”

  Bolan yawned and stretched. “All right. A little R and R before I go to meet the Mahdi.”

  James raised his eyebrows in slight surprise. Getting Bolan to rest in the middle of a mission was like pulling teeth. “That was too easy,” he said.

  Bolan nodded at James. The ex-Navy SEAL was the most dangerous knife fighter Bolan had ever met. “How’s your double kris technique?” he asked.

  James lit up the kitchen with his smile. “Carve you like the Christmas goose, Whitey.”

  “I’ll give you a chance to prove it,” he said as he walked out of the kitchen.

  8

  Malacca Strait

  Mack Bolan was prepared for whatever might happen next.

  Bolan’s cover was the thinnest it had ever been. He looked at the rising sun and thought it was a good day to die.

  Barbara Price spoke through the stereo speaker in the cabin as Bolan gazed eastward. “Striker, you have company.”

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Satellite imaging shows two small vessels coming around the point toward your position. ETA ten minutes. Armed men on deck.” Price’s voice rose slightly with concern. “You have time to rethink this. Bugging out is still an option. Last time, you had Marcie and Scott with you and your opponents were in canoes. This time, you’re facing the enemy in platoon strength, and you’re all by your lonesome.”

  “I know.” Last time he had also had stun grenades, CS gas and darkness on his side. This time the yacht had been stripped of her armament. Bolan’s only defenses were a sword and one of the biggest lies he had ever told.

  “Striker, weigh anchor and head for open ocean. A pair of F-111 fighters are twenty minutes from your position. A stern chase is a long chase. Hit your diesels. If the pirates follow, I can order both vessels sunk with laser-guided bombs. Philippine naval cutters will sweep for survivors and we can do intelligence surveys from there.”

  “Negative, Control. This is an infiltration mission. Keep the fighters as Plan B if I am attacked and sunk. Otherwise, stand down. You have satellite imaging?”

  “We have you for the next forty-five minutes.”

  “Affirmative, Control.” Bolan strode into the cabin. “Breaking contact.”

  “Striker—”

  Bolan disconnected his satellite link and packed the unit into its aluminum case. He walked to the stern and heaved it into the sea. The yacht was going to be taken by the enemy. There was no choice about that, but the last thing his cover needed was CIA hardware on board. He sat down on one of the folding galley seats and drew the dadao from its wood and leather scabbard. He slipped the sharpening steel from its pocket and ran it along the already shaving-sharp Damascus steel.

  Four minutes.

  The Executioner ceased his honing as he became aware of the sound of diesel engines. Twice the enemy had been caught by his Q-boat strategy. He wondered if they would come in the same way to—

  Bolan threw himself down as automatic weapons opened up in a concerted roar. The windows of the cabin shattered and the wooden cabinets of the galleys ruptured into flying splinters as machine guns and automatic rifles raked the boat from stem to stern. The fusillade continued for nearly a minute as rifles and light support weapons were emptied and reloaded as fast as they could be fired.

  Bolan had one thing in his favor. No RPG rockets had slammed into the yacht and set her on fire. The enemy wanted the ship intact for the final slaughter onboard.

  The reconnaissance by fire was new.

  The firestorm stopped as quickly as it had started. Bolan lay prone and listened to the sound of the engines as the pirate vessels chugged forward. He heard the clack and clatter of dozens of firearms being laid down on the deck. At the same time, dozens of bladed weapons rasped from their sheaths as the pirates came in for the kill. He could hear the simultaneous intake of four dozen men readying themselves for the war cry of jihad.

  Bolan beat them to it.

  The Executioner burst out of the hatch, stripped to the waist with the dadao raised overhead in both hands. “Allah Akhbar!”

  A pair of shrimp boats bracketed the yacht ten yards to port and starboard. Dozens of Southeast Asian men in white turbans bearing bladed weapons stood on decks, ready to board the yacht.

  They stared at Bolan in shock.

  A fat little man burned brass colored by the sun lowered his sword. He wore a white turban and a short robe that barely covered his girth. His hashish-reddened eyes peered at Bolan with surprising lucidity. His thick brows bunched mightily as he spoke in a heavy accent.

  “Muslim?”

  Bolan didn’t answer. The decks of both shrimp boats were strewed with set-aside automatic weapons. Any of the four dozen men could pick up a rifle and blow Bolan to pieces. He noted several RPG-7 launchers among the rifles. The Executioner stood like a statue of iron,
the dadao cocked to kill the first man who set foot upon the yacht.

  Bolan hid his surprise as a woman stepped out from the throng on the starboard shrimper. She was almost six feet tall and wore a white robe but no turban. Her blue-black hair fell to her waist. A bronze chain draped over her shoulders only enhanced her startlingly pronounced breasts as it crisscrossed between them.

  Bolan made her for a Eurasian of Indonesian-Dutch descent. In each hand, she held pair of giant barbecue tongs that could only be described as combat pincers. Each weapon was a two-foot fold of iron with toothed tips so that when squeezed close would grab and tear flesh like the jaws of a shark. Bolan instantly grasped that such a device could easily grip and rip a bladed weapon from an opponent’s hand while the second pair seized a man’s trachea and ripped it from the moorings of neck bones.

  The woman stared unblinkingly at Bolan with haunting black eyes. She snarled a few words that sounded Indonesian to Bolan, and a dozen men sheathed their blades and scooped up their assault rifles. The woman’s lips curled up on one side and down on the other with disfavor as she spoke in English. “Who are you?”

  Bolan had spent the past week in intensive cram sessions with CIA language tapes, modifying his English with an eastern European accent. “My name is Makeen Boulus.”

  “Makeen.” The woman ran her gaze up and down Bolan’s physique with interest. “The strong.”

  “So my father, Samir al-Boulus named me.” Bolan lifted his chin impassively at the woman. “And who are you?”

  She smiled without an ounce of warmth. “My name is Sujatmi Fass.”

  “Fass is a Dutch name.” Bolan curled his own lip in derision. “A Christian name.”

  “So my father named me.” Her face darkened with the word father, and her eyes flashed at Bolan in challenge. “Beg me for mercy, and explain to me why you should not endure the tortures of hell before we kill you.”

  “You are pirate scum,” Bolan said, taunting the woman. “Do what you will, only tell your men to lay down their rifles and come to me with blades, so that I may meet Allah in Paradise with four dozen slaves at my side.”

  Fass glared at Bolan. She and the fat man spoke to each other in rapid Indonesian. Further conversations burst forth in Tagalog and Arabic among the pirate crews. The pincers clacked shut in the woman’s hands. “We are not pirates,” she said.

  “I came here to grieve,” Bolan said. “Deny that you have come to steal that which is mine!”

  Fass blinked. “We have come to enjoin war against the infidels.”

  Bolan scoffed. “I see no such about.”

  Fass and the fat man had another hurried conversation. Fass gazed for a long moment at Bolan. “You will come with us,” she said.

  “And if I do not wish to?”

  Fass shrugged and opened her pincers. “Then these men shall strip you and hold you down while I tear your manhood from your body.”

  “Very well.” The dadao fell point first and lodged into the deck where it stood quivering. Bolan folded his arms across his chest. “I will come with you.”

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  “THEY GOT HIM.” Barbara Price bit her lip as she watched the satellite image on the giant plasma screen in the Computer Room. Pirates had swarmed the yacht quickly. They were hoisting the sails and weighing anchor.

  “They’re separating.” Aaron Kurtzman leaned back in his wheelchair and watched as the two shrimpers and Bolan’s yacht went off in three different directions. Concealed deep in the bowels of the yacht was a second satellite link and a full warload of weapons. The panel had been sealed, caulked and painted over. The pirates would literally have to start chopping into the lower hull to discover it.

  There was also a homing beacon on the yacht, similarly embedded in the superstructure. Tracking the yacht’s whereabouts would be no problem. The problem, Kurtzman was betting, was Bolan was no longer on the yacht. “What’s our window with the satellite?”

  “Thirty minutes left,” Price replied.

  “How about the fighters?”

  Carmen Delahunt clicked keys at her station. “They each have another hour of loiter time before they have to fly to Australia and refuel.”

  “We have in-flight refueling?”

  “We have a tanker flying out of Darwin,” Price stated, “but it’s going to be thin getting it there in time. I’m willing to risk it, and so are the pilots.” She arched an eyebrow at Kurtzman.

  She obviously thought that airborne surveillance was a good idea, Kurtzman thought as he drummed his fingers on the desktop. Bolan had said he didn’t want a tail. He would initiate contact when the opportunity presented itself.

  “Recall the fighters, but keep a pair hot in Diego Garcia. Keep in-flight refueling hot on the tarmac.”

  “So that’s it?”

  Kurtzman shrugged. “We have a lock on the beacon in the yacht?”

  “Beacon activated, signal is strong,” Price confirmed. “Battery is good for one hundred and sixty-eight hours.”

  “Pol and Calvin are ready?”

  “Both are in Manila. They have full warloads, with one for Striker. They have a seaplane and can be airborne on ‘go.’ ”

  “What is Mr. Jinrong’s status?”

  “Flawless Victory is just slightly north of Singapore undertaking repair and taking on a few new crewmen. Ming says he can be underway in forty-eight hours and is prepared to go wherever he is needed.”

  “Marcie?”

  “She’s in place in Mindanao, her cover is established. She is ready to move when summoned.”

  “And our young friend?”

  “Ali’s been released back into the wild. He’s disappeared and hasn’t checked in, but according to Pol we should wait a week before we start worrying about it.”

  Kurtzman ceased drumming his fingers on the desk. “That’s it, then. We’ve done all we can do.” He watched the screen as the computer-generated image showed the three boats slowly moving farther apart. “It’s all up to the big guy now.”

  9

  A single shaft of light shone down in the shrimper’s black belly through a hole in the deck. Bolan sat in half-lotus position on the sticky floor and watched it. If he raised his palm to it, the ray burned with the midday, tropical heat like light through a magnifying glass. The sweltering, dark chamber reeked with the fermenting remnants of a thousand generations of crustaceans that had been dredged up from the seas. The stench was overpowering and all pervasive. Bolan felt like he was absorbing it.

  They had been at sea for three days. Bolan considered his options and found them extremely limited. He had been stripped of everything, including his clothes. The pirates had, however, allowed him to keep a prayer rug and a copy of the Koran. Each morning, he was given a bowl of steamed rice and a banana. In the evening, he had a bowl of the morning’s leftover rice fried with bits of curried mystery meat on top. He was given a fresh slop bucket once a day and a bucket of water to drink.

  The Executioner had been in a hell of a lot worse lockups in his life, but he knew it would be a long time before he willingly ate shrimp again, and he didn’t fancy his chances of making his way out of the hold past forty pirates using two plastic buckets, a book and four feet of carpet.

  Bolan watched the thin shaft of light as it went vertical. It was time for the noon prayer.

  He decided he was just going to have to wait and see how things developed.

  The Executioner unrolled his prayer mat and began the four silent cycles of prayer. He found he didn’t have long to wait.

  Light flooded in as the loading hatched squealed open. Fass, the fat man and half a dozen men with automatic rifles ringed the hatch in glaring silhouette. Bolan’s shorts, sandals and T-shirt were tossed down to him. He finished the four cycles of silent prayer before dressing and clambering up the wooden ladder. He squinted into the world. After three days in the hold, the colors of Southeast Asia were almost unbearable. The sky and sea seemed too blue, and the island two do
zen yards to starboard was an incredible shade of green. The sun was searing white and the strip of beach reflected it with ugly intensity.

  Bolan had long since lost his sense of direction. As he surveyed his surroundings, all he was sure of was that the shrimper lay somewhere between New Guinea and Thailand. That left thousands of miles of ocean and ten of thousands of islands to choose from. The yacht and the other shrimper were gone. He was fully aware that no one knew where he was.

  Bolan took a deep breath. He had emerged from the rotting oven of the hold. That was the first step, and the Executioner accepted the simple blessing of the ocean breeze filling his lungs.

  Fass cocked her head at the filthy, naked man who had emerged from the hold. He was not beaten down or fearful. Nor was he angry and defiant.

  The man was smiling as he tilted his face into the wind.

  “You present a problem to us, Makeen,” she announced. Neither she nor anyone else of the crew was wearing white robes or turbans. They wore khaki shorts and T-shirts, like any other of a thousand fishing crews in these waters. The fat man wore a battered Greek fisherman’s cap, and Bolan made him out as the man in command. Only Fass and the prevalence of automatic weapons gave lie to the crew’s appearance of hardworking fishermen.

  “I am sorry to inconvenience you,” Bolan said.

  “If it is true that you are a believer, then it would be wrong for us to kill you, despite the fact that you are a westerner.”

  Bolan nodded at the wisdom of the statement.

  “However, we cannot allow you to live after having seen us.”

  The Executioner accepted that with a shrug as well. “You have a solution?”

  “I had voted to kill you and be done with it,” the woman admitted, “but Hoja has become fond of you.”

  The fat man nodded at Bolan and smiled through a mouthful of buck teeth yellowed from chewing betel nut.

  “Hoja approves of you.” Fass regarded Bolan dryly. “You showed no fear when we took you.”

  Bolan inclined his head at Hoja. Fatty grinned back delightedly. Bolan returned his gaze to the woman. “And so?”