Interception

Brognola shrugged. “Their best operatives are running in Pakistan and Iraq these days.”

“So I’m supposed to enter a section of the city of Split that is a law unto itself. A place where everyone is pretending to be something they aren’t. Then I start following up leads to find two people who have disappeared, but whose disappearances may or may not be linked.”

Brognola nodded. “Yeah. That about sums it up. But don’t forget, if anyone suspects you’re an American agent, there are about one hundred intelligence and terrorist cells who’ll try to kill you.”

Bolan leaned back. “When do I leave?”

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Nathan Meyer for his contribution to this work.

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;…who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

—Theodore Roosevelt,

(1858–1919)

I’m not one to stand idly by while the bullies of the world intimidate the weak. It’s not in my nature—nor will it ever be. I’ll take my last breath defending America.

—Mack Bolan

To the men and women who defend our nation

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

In Croat the name of the suburb was Trg Brace Radic, which meant Old Town. It was underpopulated, filled with ancient structures and isolated from the more urban areas of modern Split and in the shadow of the venerate Milesi Palace.

At that time of night it was a place where people minded their own business and kept to themselves. Inside an abandoned, rundown house Mack Bolan stood facing two men. One of the men was Andrew Vasili, a Croat intelligence official turned mercenary information broker, and the second was his bodyguard.

Vasili opened the envelope Mack Bolan had just handed him. The man ran a thick thumb over the neatly bundled packets of euros. He grunted to himself and nodded, satisfied with what he saw. He turned to his bodyguard and nodded again in a single, sharp motion.

The bodyguard removed his hand from the pistol grip of his silenced H&K MP-5 and reached into his coat pocket, withdrawing a silver flash drive that he handed to Bolan, who made it disappear like a stage magician.

Suddenly the glass shattered with a sound like ice in a whiskey tumbler. The shards flew through the air, then fell to the floor as the bodyguard stiffened. The man’s back arched and his eyes grew wide as the heavy-caliber round struck the flesh of his back with a wet, thick slap that was impossible to mistake.

A second later the report of the rifle rolled like thunder through the broken window and Bolan was on the move. The bodyguard turned as he fell, twisting with the force of the round and tumbling like a drunk on the deck of a pitching ship. Blood burst from his mouth in a violent cough as Bolan was dropping and going for his weapon.

Vasili, the informant, shouted as his bodyguard died, letting an expensive black attaché case drop like a stone to the filthy floor. Then he reacted with the honed reflexes of a man primarily concerned with his own survival.

The blood splashed Bolan’s face, warm and sticky and smelling of copper. He heard car tires crunch across gravel and the race of a vehicle engine. Crossing quickly to a second window beside the room’s front door, he parted the limp curtains. Outside a dented and grimy Stobart pickup with its lights off pulled to a stop in a short slide, raising a cloud of dust beside a long figure holding an SKS automatic rifle.

Asian men wearing green headbands and street clothes leaped from the back of the truck. Bolan counted four men, plus a driver and passenger in the front seat. That made seven with the first shooter. Time sped by like frames on a film reel. He saw a RPG-7 and a RPK machine gun standing out among the thicket of AKM barrels.

Of course, he thought to himself, turning. The exchange couldn’t have gone smoothly. It hardly ever did.

Bolan realized he and Vasili would never make it to the back door in time to save themselves if the hit squad was allowed to execute its plan unchallenged. He wasn’t sure who the team of assassins answered to, but it was obvious they had come loaded for bear.

Bolan would need to put a monkey wrench in their well-oiled machinery if he wanted to live.