The only way to avoid a collision was to stop smashing against the guardrail
Swerving left long enough to disentangle the two vehicles, Bolan put his right foot on the brake, causing the Mustang to decelerate sharply.
The assassinâs car continued to scrape against the guardrail for several seconds before the assassin also swerved left. But unlike the Executionerâs maneuver, the assassin went too far and spun around counterclockwise. Tires squealed as the car went into an uncontrolled spin.
The truck didnât slow down.
Bolan slammed his foot on the brake, bringing his car to a screeching halt. The truck did likewise, but had considerably more momentum on its side, and so did not stop immediately.
Bolan watched as the truck smashed into the other car.
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I only love that which they defend.
âJ.R.R. Tolkien
(1892â1973) The Two Towers
I will protect the people of this nation from all traitors, whether by gun, sword, arrowâor my bare hands.
âMack 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 nameâSergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.
Mack Bolanâs 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 societyâs every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warriorâto 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 alliesâAble Team and Phoenix Forceâwaged 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 âarmâs-lengthâ alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.
Prologue
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
Epilogue
The autumn winds blew in off the Gulf of Mexico and kicked up outside the midnight black car. It was windy enough that the twenty-five-year-old car creaked and squeaked and even shook at times.
It didnât matter to Agent John McAvoy. He loved both the autumn season and his old retired police car, a 1982 Crown Victoria. There were better cars, but McAvoy loved things with problems and faults. He preferred to work with things and figure out what went wrong, then make them right. Often, he joked that that was why he married his ex-wife, only to learn that things could be fixedâpeople, not so much.
Back when he was a detective for the Chicago Police Department, McAvoy was that rarest of detectives who actually liked a good mystery, a stone-cold whodunit. McAvoy relished the cases his fellow detectives loathed. They all wanted the slam dunks, the easy arrests, where there was a reliable witness and plenty of physical evidence, plus minimum paperwork.
But not McAvoy. He wanted to solve things. It gave him a greater sense of accomplishment, the feeling of a job well done. That trait made him well-suited to the more complicated work done by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Heâd moved over to BATF after only ten years with CPD, having grown weary of Chicagoâs weather and politics, and having needed a change after his divorce. Not that the politics were any better in Floridaâin fact, they were worse, as hard to believe as that wasâbut at least there was more sun and no winter.
Best of all, no ex-wife and a lot more pretty women. It definitely had been the right move.
It had been months on this particular undercover case. Last May, heâd become Donald Kincaid, a Key Westâbased gunrunner. It was miserable, cozying up to the scum of the Earth, having to pretend to be their pals. However, the months of work had gained him valuable information.
He hoped it would all be worth it.
McAvoy sat at his steering wheel, a burning cigarette dangling from between his lips, reading the file on a former Marine lieutenant turned gunrunner named Kevin Lee. The BATF agent had read it all before, of courseâLee was one of the major players in South Floridaâbut McAvoy couldnât get over Leeâs impeccable service record with the Corps, ending with a tour in Afghanistan. He had no reprimands, no bad behavior, no warning signs at allâit was spotless. Sometimes, he thought, people just flipped a switch.