LAW OF THE JUNGLE
In Mexican cartel country to rescue an undercover agent, Mack Bolan arrives to find the stronghold smoked and his man missing. Itâs the second failed play at the same site, where five years earlier a mission went deadly sour. This time, Bolan suspects betrayal in the highest places. And when the mission shifts from rescue to revenge, the trail extends into the corridors of Washington.
Bolan uncovers a wealthy industrialist selling arms to drug dealers to finance a daring political gambit. The billionaire has a rogue, high-level CIA official in the game and ambitions to put a puppet in the White House. With genetically enhanced supersoldiers to do his dirty work, heâs unstoppable. Until one of those soldiers dedicates his last fight to helping Bolan take down this enemy of the state whoâs convinced heâs got the power to commandeer the U.S. presidency. The Executioner wonât stop until he proves him wrong.
Who the hell are these guys?
The guy with the Fu Manchu mustache turned toward Bolan and said something. The Executioner couldnât hear, but he was able to read the manâs lips: Weâre Americans. Here to assist.
The mansion shook with a series of explosions, and its interior erupted in yellow flames. The big guy with the mustache got up and raced toward the burning building, the muzzle of his weapon spitting flame.
Bolanâs senses were returning. He glanced around and saw that Cepeda had been placed next to him. The soldier reached over and placed his palm on top of the dressing to apply pressure. It was already sodden with the captainâs blood.
Sounds of an explosion ripped through the night. More flames shot out of the mansion, and Bolan saw the new group of men, their saviors, pumping rounds into the burning structure. The cavalry had arrived, and they werenât taking prisoners.
No one was getting out of there alive.
Time for Bolan to act.
I am concerned for the security of our great nation; not so
much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
âGeneral Douglas MacArthur, 1880â1964
I donât care who the enemy is. I will always defend this
nation and her people to my last breath.
âMack Bolan
PROLOGUE
The South American jungle
Five years ago
The undergrowth rustled in the darkness about twenty yards ahead. Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, raised his fist to signal the rest of the squad to halt. The heavy foliage had made the movement almost imperceptible, but he was certain heâd seen something through his night-vision goggles. Exactly what, he wasnât sure. An animal, perhaps? They were in the jungle, after all. Or could it have been a man? Was someone up there waiting for them? Their nighttime insertion by truck along the twisting, mountainous road and the subsequent mile-long hike had been treacherous and lengthy, but supposedly assured the element of surprise. It should have been impossible for anyone to shadow or precede them. Unless they were expected.
Bolan kept his eyes on the area ahead. There was no more movement, but it was still one more tiny crack in the ops plan that heâd been given.
The Executioner didnât feel totally at ease with this mission. Even its tag name, Operation Catâs Cradle, bothered him. He remembered the childhood game of looping string around your fingers. He also remembered the Kurt Vonnegut novel by the same name, with the repeating refrain, âSee the cat? See the cradle?â Like characters in the book, Bolan never thought the configuration resembled a cat or a cradle.
Things hadnât seemed quite right at the onset of this op, either. Maybe it was the degree of absolute assurance the Colombians had given them during the briefing. An overweight army colonel who looked as if heâd never missed a meal had smiled throughout the presentation, explaining first in Spanish for Captain Carlos Cepeda and his men, and then making a deferential show of adding a sentence in English for the benefit of Bolan and the two DEA agents, how perfectly crafted and secret the operation planning had been. âUn plano muy perfecto. A perfect plan,â heâd said. âNothing can possibly go wrong.â
Bolan knew better. Something could always go wrong. Murphyâs Law had taught him that: If anything can go wrong, it will. This wasnât the soldierâs kind of mission, and how heâd let Hal Brognola talk him into wet-nursing this Colombian army special ops team on some namby-pamby extraction detail was beyond him. If it werenât for the two DEA agents, Chris Avelia and German Salamanca, whoâd been helping the Colombian army locate the De la Noval cartel for the past ten months, Bolan wouldâve declined. Avelia had assisted the soldier in a previous mission and he had come to like the kid.