Trial By Fire

The Executioner rose to his feet. “Nenad’s men are terrorists, not soldiers. They get others to commit their atrocities for them. But here in the jungle they are going to have to do their own fighting. They are not ready for what Niner Squad has become.”

Cadet Jovich rose and the rest of the squad rose with him. “No way in hell they’re ready for us.”

“Caesar’s men are jungle fighters, but they have been terrorizing unarmed villages for far too long. They are not ready for what you have become.”

Cadet Eischen intoned Bolan’s earlier words. “We shoot them until they’re all down or we are.”

Bolan shoved his right hand out into the middle of the circle. The rest of the squad huddled up and put their hands on top of his. “And though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil…for we are Niner Squad, the apex predators and the meanest sons of bitches in the valley.”

“Amen, Sergeant,” Cadet Johnson said.

“On me, call out!” Bolan looked around and saw the steel in the backbone of his people. “Niner!”

The squad instantly shouted back, “Squad!”

Bolan raised his hand beneath the squad’s and they snapped their hands down to break the huddle. “Be ready to move in an hour.”

A brave man may fall, but he cannot yield.

—Latin Proverb

When odds are stacked against you, and the enemy seems too big, stand up. Stand up and fight. It is might and heart that are the deciding factors in every great battle.

—Mack 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 name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s 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 society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to 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 allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged 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 “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

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

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The flight attendant screamed as the machete was brandished beneath her nose and recoiled against the fuselage. The men laughed unpleasantly. The captives cowered cross-legged with their wrists bound behind them beneath the remaining wing. The man with the machete dragged the tip of his blade down the woman’s throat and let it rest on her collarbone. He grinned over his shoulder and said something choice to his confederates in Swahili. The men laughed again.

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, screwed the launcher-adapter onto the muzzle of his submachine gun and began his creep.

The Bombardier Challenger 604 jet lay in the little valley below like a stricken bird. This type of aircraft was classified as a heavy private jet. The twin-engine bird was configured to carry up to ten passengers in very swanky style. The smoldering scar in the 604’s tail section said someone had salted its tail with a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile.

The pilot had been good. It was obvious that he had crash-landed rather than crashed. He’d aimed for the little valley that opened up a slot in the jungle canopy and hit the creek that divided it like a runway. He’d lost his starboard wing on a tree, but the fuselage looked to be mostly intact. A heavy tree bough hung brutally speared through the cockpit in a way that looked like it had gone very badly for the pilot.

Bolan descended to the valley floor. He caught the unmistakable stench of burned human flesh.

Rescue missions were one of the soldier’s least favorite activities. If the situation was bad enough to send him as the final option, the situation was just about FUBAR. Solo missions on foot in equatorial Africa in summertime were about as bad as rescue missions got. Among the host of all things FUBAR about this mission was the fact that all of his equipment had been begged, borrowed or stolen for him by the CIA station in Pretoria. By the same token it could have been worse. South Africans had a well-deserved reputation for solid kit. The old L42A1 “Enforcer” sniper rifle over Bolan’s shoulder was a forty-year-old Pretoria police issue, but it was tough. The BXP submachine gun in Bolan’s hand was the size of a large pistol and a cleaned up, optical-sighted version of the old US 1980s-era MAC-10.