Devil's Bargain
DANCING WITH THE DEVILAlpha Deep Six. Wet work specialists so covert, they were thought dead. Now this paramilitary group of black ops assassins and saboteurs has been resurrected in a conspiracy engineered somewhere in the darkest corners of military intelligence. Their mission: unleash Armageddon.They've got America's most determined enemies ready to jump-start the nightmare, and the countdown has begun. Blood and terror are pouring through America's streets. A presidential directive has cut through red tape, dropped Mack Bolan square in charge. His orders are clear: abort the enemy's twisted dreams.If Bolan survives, then it gets really personal. Because Alpha Deep Six has a hostage. A Stony Man operative…
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No time, no choice, Bolan realized
Sight, breathe deep, let it out. How many times had he dropped an enemy from a distance, an invisible shooter? So many killing fields, he briefly considered, since he was a Green Beret sniper in Southeast Asia.
Yesterdayâs victories and spilled enemy blood to save innocent lives didn't mean a damn thing, he knew, and never guaranteed success in the present. Dwelling on the glory daysâbelieving reputation and prior success would carry a man through the dayâs trialsâwas best left for fools, wanna-bes and has-beens.
The future, Bolan thought, was now.
And in his hands.
Other titles available in this series:
Lethal Impact
Deadfall
Onslaught
Battle Force
Rampage
Takedown
Deathâs Head
Hellground
Inferno
Ambush
Blood Strike
Killpoint
Vendetta
Stalk Line
Omega Game
Shock Tactic
Showdown
Precision Kill
Jungle Law
Dead Center
Tooth and Claw
Thermal Strike
Day of the Vulture
Flames of Wrath
High Aggression
Code of Bushido
Terror Spin
Judgment in Stone
Rage for Justice
Rebels and Hostiles
Ultimate Game
Blood Feud
Renegade Force
Retribution
Initiation
Cloud of Death
Termination Point
Hellfire Strike
Code of Conflict
Vengeance
Executive Action
Killsport
Conflagration
Storm Front
War Season
Evil Alliance
Scorched Earth
Deception
Destinyâs Hour
Power of the Lance
A Dying Evil
Deep Treachery
War Load
Sworn Enemies
Dark Truth
Breakaway
Blood and Sand
Caged
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
Devilâs Bargain
Mack Bolan®
Don Pendleton
It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win.
âDouglas MacArthur,
1880â1964
However much enemy blood I need to spill, whatever degree of pain is required to inflict on the vipers and jackals, I will be part of this war, without limit, without consequences. There will be no concession. There will be no compromise.
âMack Bolan
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
Jaric Muhdal was waiting for the miracle to happen.
Word of the alleged breakout had been written in Kurdish on a wadded note tossed into his lap five days ago by his Turk captor. Muhdal had been ordered to eat the missive once heâd read it. Or was it six days, a week since the encounter? And was this simply mental torture, taunting him with false hopes of escaping the hell on earth called Dyrik Prison? One last sadistic blow by his tormentors to break his spirit, and days, he believed, before he was marched out to the courtyard to be beheaded?
It was nearly impossible to track time or grasp insight into mind games played by his tormentors, he concluded as he hacked out a strand of gummy blood, wincing when his tongue ran over the craters inside his mouth. Rage building, he felt the slime ooze down over his bare chest and stomach, pool to a warm slither against exposed genitals. Time was frozen, but his hatred felt as if it could last an eternity.
How much more could he take? Daily he was hung upside down, pummeled by fists, flogged by a metal studded belt. A slice of moldy bread, a cup of tepid water a dayâhe was a withered sack of drooping flesh. For endless hours he sat naked and bleeding from his scalp to the soles of his feet in the blackness of a six-by-four concrete-block cell, breathing the stink of his own filth and fear; waiting for execution. Still, solitary confinement was respite from torture.
He knew plenty about deprivation, suffering, crueltyâhis people, after all, had been savaged by the Turks for eighty yearsâbut even those who believed they carried the heart of a lion could long for death under such brutal conditions.
Only they wouldnât break him, he determined. No begging to be spared when the time came, no crack in the armor of his will. He would take what he knew about his fellow PKK freedom fighters with him to the grave. As leader, there was no other way, the warriorâs ego also dictating he stand an iron pillar, an example of unwavering defiance in the enemyâs face. With the imprisonment of Abdullah Ocalan, the disappearance of his younger brother, Osmanâprevious heir to powerâhe hadnât climbed the ranks of the Workers Party of Kurdistan by showing mercy, either to friend or foe. Why expect anything now but the worst at the hands of a savage, hated enemy? He would die the way he had lived. At worst, he could take comfort not even his death would cripple the dream of a Kurdistan nation.
Muhdal felt the pain dig needles of fire through every nerve ending. For some strange reason, agony seared to mind images of his wife and three children, murdered many years ago by Turk soldiers, leaving him to wonder how much they had suffered before they were beheaded, their bodies dumped in a mass grave with the other villagers. The ringing in his ears, his brain jellied and throbbing, smothered by darkness, and he found himself suddenly drifting away into warm darkness. Muffled by the steel door, the screams of other prisoners, whipped and beaten down the corridor, some of them, he knew, with testicles plugged into generators, echoing the cry of anger and hatred in his heart.
