Killpath

URBAN RETRIBUTION

A powerful Colombian cartel goes too far when they torture and kill a DEA agent. Tasked with dismantling their operation and taking out their leader, Mack Bolan heads to Cali with an unlikely ally–a convicted murderer known as the Witch. The former cocaine dealer has an ax to grind with the cartel’s kingpin, and she’s willing to go along with Bolan’s plan as long as they avenge her sons’ deaths in the process.

But sending the woman in as bait works too well. Outnumbered and outgunned, the two will need more than their combat skills to dodge the bullets. If they’re going to survive this Colombian street war, they’ll have to trust each other and work as a team, even when it seems the end is near. The cartel may fear the Witch’s revenge, but the Executioner will make them dread justice.

Bolan charged down the hall with a snarl of bullets

Some of his opponents wore body armor, but the M4’s deadly sputter struck with enough force to slow them down, allowing Bolan to adjust aim and send rounds into their exposed heads and throats.

Between Rojas’s sniping, Bolan’s blitz and the gunmen’s agitated state, the Soldados de Cali Nuevos didn’t stand a chance in this tenement.

It took all of a minute and two thirty-round magazines to completely clear the first story. The second story was alive with breaking glass and screaming. Rojas wasn’t allowing the Soldados a moment of respite.

By the time Bolan reached the second-floor corridor, only a few men remained within sight. The Executioner shouldered his rifle and drilled one of them through the side of his head with a single round. The other Soldado let out a scream and waved his machine pistol wildly. In the dark hallway, Bolan was a wraith among the shadows.

“On two,” Bolan told Rojas. “Don’t shoot me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied. “I’m saving all my ammo and hatred for the enemy.”

Killpath

Don Pendleton

Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.

—James Anthony Froude,

1818–1894

I take no pleasure in ending a life, but I will not hesitate to deliver the ultimate punishment in the name of justice. Those who willfully inflict suffering on others must pay the price.

—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.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

Quote

The Mack Bolan Legend

1

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17

Copyright

1

Mack Bolan, the Executioner, slipped into the shadows, gliding slowly through the night, scarcely disturbing the surrounding foliage.

He was armed for a soft probe tonight. A Drug Enforcement Agency operative had gone missing, and he was searching for her on this small Texas estate. While more conventional law enforcement would take at least a couple of days to seek out the agent, Hal Brognola knew that the Executioner’s touch was exactly what was needed to dig her out of the fire.

Bolan moved with the stealth of a black panther, despite the forty pounds of gear stashed in his combat harness and the pockets of his blacksuit.

He did not merely blend in with the shadows; he was one, flowing across the property with fluid grace and silence until he was only a few feet from a guard. Behind the man, Bolan was in a good position to take stock of the rest of the estate’s security. From his approach, and from viewing the area with a night vision monocle, he could tell the place was mobbed up to the gills. The guard in front of him wore night vision goggles and was packing serious firepower, an M4 carbine equipped with various optics and grips. It was an impressive setup, but it was an obvious case of the guard putting everything he thought was cool onto his personal rifle. Even now, the guy was fidgeting with the unnecessary weight.

Bolan wished he could have given this tyro a chance to learn from his mistakes, but the sentry was armed, and he was currently pulling guard duty on an estate where a kidnapped federal agent was held captive. This man was willing to kill, even if he was too heavily burdened to do it efficiently. With a swift movement, Bolan brought a loop of inelastic polymer wire down over the guard’s head and yanked on the handles. The wire sliced through skin as if it were butter, crushing down on the tough, fibrous tube of the man’s windpipe. The garrote would take a little more effort to cut into his trachea, but for now, the guard was unable to speak, which was a fine start in silently removing him from his post.

Bolan dragged him back into the trees at the edge of the property. The man grasped at the wire and his hands came away covered in crimson liquid. The polymer dug deeper and was now embedded at least an inch into the guard’s throat. Bolan was not someone to let a man suffer, so he pulled down hard, breaking the mobster’s neck on the point of his Kevlar polymer knee guard.

Fast. Silent. Relatively merciful. The warrior tucked the body beneath a patch of bushes, leaving the wire garrote around the dead man’s neck. There was no way he could untangle the weapon without spattering himself with blood, and the scent of gore was something that carried and could compromise this operation.

Speed and stealth were the Executioner’s priorities tonight. Overwhelming firepower from the start would only endanger the captive agent and draw the law into this. Bolan hoped that this wouldn’t become a recovery instead of a rescue. Still, he was well-equipped for any situation that might arise. Aside from various means of silent death in the form of impact weapons, garrotes and knives, he packed his traditional sidearm, the Beretta 93R machine pistol.

For backup and long-range engagements when stealth might no longer be a factor, he wore his Desert Eagle .44 Magnum on his hip in a fast-draw holster. This would be his last resort. Bolan decided to leave the dead guard’s rifle behind, though he swiftly removed the magazine and the bolt, rendering it useless.

Along with his blacksuit, Bolan wore crepe-soled boots, which would make little sound as he crept along. He’d smeared his hands and face with black greasepaint, completing his transformation from soldier to shadowy wraith. This was as much for the intimidation factor as for blending in with the darkness.

More than once, the Executioner’s jet-black mien had been sufficient to freeze a group of opponents in shock and horror long enough for him to outgun them. If he were going for pure camouflage, he would have donned multiple shades of gray, which would help him merge even more seamlessly with the shadows. But midnight-black would have a much stronger psychological impact on anyone crossing his path. So far, he hadn’t been detected. If someone did see him, Bolan would have a short window of opportunity in which his foe would be struggling to recover from the shock of the shadow man’s apparition.

The disappearance of DEA operative Teresa Blanca would not have normally drawn the Executioner down to this part of the country within a day of her first failure to report in, but she had been undercover in an effort to break Los Soldados Nuevos de Cali, a rising force not only in Colombia, but also with tentacles stretching out across Central America and latching on to the soft underbelly of the United States. The New Soldiers of Cali had been little more than a blip on the radar five years before, but in the intervening time, they had proven themselves to be ruthless and powerful fighters.

The details on SNC were sketchy at best, but as far as the Executioner could tell, the organization was using a combination of military planning, technology and unconventional warfare to enrich themselves and maintain an ironclad control over their territory and the products they trafficked.

Blanca had found her way into the SNC and had been sending back some good intel before she popped up in Brownsville, Texas. That was a bad thing since she was supposed to be operating in Cali, Colombia, thousands of miles south. She’d sent off one message, and then nothing.

That was ten hours ago. Her panicked support in Cali confirmed that she’d gone to America on a private flight. Border Control hadn’t seen any hint of her arrival on US soil.

Bolan, already on the Texas Gulf Coast doing some pre-mission observation of a Zetas operation, had picked up a rumor that the Mexican cartel was working with the SNC. It made sense for the two paramilitary units to form an alliance rather than engage in warfare with each other. Granted, both parties would be looking out for themselves, but for now, there was cooperation.

Cooperation, including the captivity of a woman trying to uphold the law.

Keeping both hands free and moving in a low and easy crouch, the Executioner crept along in the darkness. He was confident he could avoid most of the opposition without a hint of trouble, now that he’d removed the sole sentry who would have noticed his chosen approach to the mansion. Still, shifts could be changing, and there was always the risk of a wandering eye picking up his movements. So far, his instincts had been solid, but he paused to double-check his surroundings.

The Zetas security force still moved according to the pattern Bolan had observed earlier. Satisfied, Bolan continued his advance, and within a moment, he was at the small enclosure surrounding the garbage bins. Using the structure for cover, he did a quick eyeball of the camera trained on the kitchen entrance. He pulled out a small device, aimed and sent an electromagnetic pulse toward the surveillance equipment, turning the electronics inside of the camera housing into so much useless scrap. With the back of the house no longer under a live eye, Bolan took off for the kitchen door. Along the way, he traded the camera-killer for a SWAT-style pry-knife.

With one hand, Bolan tried the door handle. If it was unlocked, no problem. If it was locked, the chisel-like blade would punch out the latch in a second. The handle caught, so Bolan jammed the pry-knife between the door and the frame until he had sufficient leverage to burst the latch.

There was a loud crack, and then the door swung open. Bolan stepped inside the mansion. The sound was likely to draw attention, but no one would have mistaken it for a gunshot. There would be no sudden, armed response.

This conflict was still contained.

Bolan slid into the shadows of a large pantry as a man entered the kitchen, his eyes on the fridge. The lights were off, and the refrigerator’s glow cast the man in silhouette. This wasn’t a casual homeowner. Not too many homeowners, even in Texas, went to get a midnight snack with a semiautomatic shotgun on a three point sling with a full bandolier of shells.

Bolan moved quickly, clamping a blackened hand over the man’s nose and mouth, causing him to stiffen reflexively. He tried to grab Bolan’s forearm and wrist as the Executioner plunged the flat edge of the pry-knife into the base of the man’s skull. Flesh, tendon and cartilage parted under the force of his stab. Any attempt at struggle on the part of the guard was instantly over.

Bolan lowered the body to the floor, pulling it behind the central counter island. For the moment, the lifeless hardman would be out of sight and out of mind.

Bolan inched toward the kitchen doorway that led to the rest of the house, using a pocket mirror to check the hall in both directions before passing through it. He unholstered the suppressed Beretta and made for the closest staircase. Before he reached it, he heard the sounds of a soccer game and excited but hushed voices wafting from a television nearby.

“Eh, Chuy! Donde estan los cervezas?” a man said in a stage whisper just before a figure filled the TV room doorway.

The man asking for the beer froze, eyes wide at the sight of the Executioner, ebony from head to toe, bristling with weapons on his battle harness, and a handgun pointed right at him. At once frightened and confused, the man was paralyzed, buying the warrior a precious second.

Bolan stabbed the Beretta and its suppressor between the man’s lips, then grabbed the back of his neck and whisked him away from the TV room and into the empty hallway.

“The girl,” Bolan said softly, his voice full of grim threat.

The Zeta swiveled his eyes and shook his head in the direction of the stairs.

Bolan delivered a powerful knuckle punch just under the Zeta’s ear. Pulling the trigger would have alerted the men watching futbol to the death of their friend, and stabbing the guy could lead to a struggle that would also draw his companions into the hall. A knockout punch, however, would be both silent and disabling. The man’s knees turned to rubber, and Bolan dragged him over to an empty closet at the foot of the stairs, tucking him inside. So far, so good.

Bolan continued to the second floor, feet quiet on the steps and Beretta drawn. It was do-or-die time, and if he needed to pull the trigger, he’d have the high ground in case anyone heard the thump of a silenced 9mm slug erupting from the machine pistol. He’d do whatever it took to defend Blanca.

Or avenge her.

As much as Bolan wanted to dismiss that possibility, Blanca had been a prisoner of the Zetas, as well as the Soldados. These cartels weren’t known for their mercy. They might have tortured and executed her already, but there was a shred of hope. The guard he’d just knocked out hadn’t hesitated when Bolan had asked after the “girl.” Hopefully that meant Blanca was somewhere upstairs. Alive. Unless there was another girl in this house…

A man wearing no shirt but with a gun holstered at his hip emerged from a bedroom and stepped smugly into Bolan’s path. Catching sight of the Executioner, the guy’s smirk faltered, but his reflexes were better than his colleague’s and his hand went to his pistol.

Bolan was faster, though, and the Beretta chugged three times. The slugs penetrated the man’s bare chest, and he crashed into the door, knocking it open as he slithered lifelessly to the ground.

Bolan heard a confused yelp from inside the bedroom and saw a shadow move across the floor.

“Quién es—”

Bolan charged across the threshold, lunging over the body. The man inside was also half-dressed, but he’d managed to snatch his weapon off the floor and aim it at the intruder. The Executioner sent the man off to his final damnation with a heart-coring second burst. He crumpled against a small desk.

There was a woman curled up on the bed, her shoulders shuddering as she sobbed. Whatever had happened in here before Bolan arrived, she obviously hadn’t been a willing participant.

At least those two sickos couldn’t do her any more harm, Bolan thought grimly.

But this was not Agent Blanca.

Bolan heard movement on the first floor, heading in his direction. He’d given away his presence, and his mission was far from complete. And now he had to figure out how to keep this woman out of the line of fire.

All before his enemies reached the top of the stairs.

2

With a strong hand, Bolan pulled the crying woman to her feet. Her eyes were red, and her movements were dull and confused, but after an initial squeak of panic, she seemed to realize that Bolan wasn’t going to hurt her.

He pushed her toward the closet.

“Stay in there and tuck yourself into the corner,” Bolan said. She slid inside, then quickly pulled the door closed.

It was time to go loud. Bolan plucked a flash-bang grenade from his combat harness, hurling it into the hallway so it bounced down the steps after a skillful rebound. The canister detonated amidst the group rushing toward him.

After the explosion had subsided, Bolan scooped up a Kalashnikov and a bandolier from the man he’d taken out in the bedroom and darted into the hall to assess the situation. Four men stood on the landing below, each clutching their eyes or ears. At such close range, the blast would have been strong enough to rupture eardrums. Bolan scanned past the staggering guards. Not much movement down there, so he returned his attention to the landing.

The sentries had guns, and soon they’d recover their wits and eyesight enough to open fire.

Bolan shouldered the stock of the Kalashnikov and pumped hot lead at the group, the sharp crack of the rifle informing him that this was a 5.45 mm caliber AK, not the 7.62. Even so, at this range, the high-velocity projectiles slashed through human flesh and shattered bone as they struck.

It was brutal, but these men would overwhelm him with handgun and machine pistol fire in seconds if he let them. And now Bolan wasn’t just looking out for himself. The girl who’d tucked herself into the closet only had drywall for protection, and drywall was poor cover against high-velocity bullets.

With half of the magazine from the AK used, Bolan slapped out the spent box, picking up another from a bandolier that the dead man in the doorway wore. Once the firearm was fully loaded, then the Executioner spent a moment tugging the belt of spare mags off of the corpse. Bolan paused to reload. By his estimation, the guard force outside the house would have heard the gunfire, and it would take them about half a minute to enter the building, if that. The most aggressive men would be bursting through the doors now, but cooler heads would not want to rush into a building with an unknown enemy inside.

That meant he could expect two waves, one full of hot-blooded young bucks, the second a more cautious and experienced group. Bolan kept his ears open for the initial approach, which would be anything but quiet. Now, he had precious seconds to look through the other rooms along this corridor before returning to the bottleneck at the top of the stairs.

Bolan swept into each bedroom, scanning for any sign of Teresa Blanca. He got to the end of the hallway without finding her, then the sound of men climbing the stairs forced him to direct his attention back to the enemy. The warrior took cover behind a doorjamb, making himself as small a target as possible. He had a clear line of fire against his opposition, as long as they poked their heads over the top of the stairs.

The first of the gunmen rose up, and Bolan let him go for a few moments. Another guy popped up behind him and covered his partner. The Executioner cut them both down, short tri-bursts punching their bodies sideways.

Screams resounded from behind and below them as their corpses toppled on to others. Bolan continued shooting, raking the air just over the top step. High-velocity slugs smashed through the faces that popped into view.

Curses filled the air, and, as if on cue, a wave of gunfire whipped down the hall toward Bolan. Bullets tore into the ceiling and walls, but none came close to touching him. Still, he wasn’t about to sit back and watch the proceedings. Bolan threw a flash-bang grenade off the far wall, and it rebounded down the corridor in a well-planned trajectory.

Instants later, the distraction device detonated with the force of a thunderbolt. Bolan exploded into the hall, keeping low and covering distance quickly with long strides. He’d reloaded the AK with a fresh magazine, and now he hammered a swath of death and destruction into the Zetas on the stairs.

Bodies writhed as 5.45 mm rounds cartwheeled through flesh. The hapless gunmen fell backward on to the landing in a gory heap. When there were no men left standing and fighting, Bolan slung his rifle and mounted the rail. Swinging his legs over, he slid down past the landing, then hopped back on to the staircase below the pile of thugs.

“Es peligroso aquí!” Bolan shouted loud enough for the woman in the closet to hear. “No se mueva!”

“Si!” she responded.

She’d survived in her hideout, and she’d stay put long enough. Satisfied, Bolan continued through the house. If Agent Blanca wasn’t on the first or second floors, then she’d be in the basement.

He reloaded as he walked, discarding the spent magazine in the AK, but he returned it to its sling over his shoulder. If he cut loose with the automatic rifle in the close quarters of a basement, he’d end up deafening himself. He switched to the suppressed Beretta instead.

He found the entry to the basement and descended the stairs quickly, but with caution. He didn’t want to get caught by a spray of bullets from below, but he wasn’t about to wait around for the next wave of guards to show.

The basement was well-lit, but the uneasy silence of the subterranean layout set his instincts on edge. If there was a prisoner, there would be guards. And if there were guards, then his appearance should have elicited a response.

Maybe they were part of the crew that he’d just taken out, but something told him that any hope of rescuing Teresa Blanca was gone. He spotted a hanging sheet of translucent plastic and moved toward it.

No, Blanca no longer required gunmen at the doorway to keep her prisoner. He pushed aside the rubbery drape and stepped into the slaughterhouse.

Blanca’s forehead sported a still-smoking bullet hole, and the rest of her body showed signs of recent and brutal torture.

There was a muffled sound in the corner of the room. Bolan turned and saw a couple of disposal bins. As he walked closer, a muzzle rose shakily from behind one of them. The barrel of a pistol came into view, but Bolan had sidestepped from in front of the gun. He reached over the top of the gun’s slide and clamped down, twisting the weapon loose from the hand holding it with the snap of finger bones. A man cried out, recoiling and kicking one of the canisters aside.

A man in a white coat held his hand gingerly, his trigger finger broken by the Executioner’s disarm.

“Was that Teresa Blanca?” Bolan asked.

The man was in his late forties, his wet hair matted across a receding hairline near the top of his skull. He was drenched with sweat. His big, trembling lips sputtered for a few moments. “Yes. It was her.”

“And you shot her?” Bolan asked.

The man gave a jerky nod. “Yes. I heard the gunfire upstairs…”

“What about the torture?” Bolan pressed. “Were you part of that, too?”

“Please. I stopped her suffering. Don’t hurt me.” He swallowed hard. “I was just following orders.”

Bolan pressed a small handgun, a .22 auto-back, into the man’s hand, squeezing his fingers around the weapon. “I won’t hurt you.”

The torturer blinked.

“Take off the lab coat,” Bolan barked.

“W-why…”

“Because you’ll be too easy to spot,” Bolan said. “You don’t want to get shot, do you?”

The man quickly began peeling off his coat. “You think there will still be shooting?”

Bolan heard footsteps on the stairs he’d just come down. The second wave was here, and part of the group had been dispatched to the basement.

“Over there!” Bolan shouted. He brought up his big Desert Eagle from its hip holster. As if spurred on, the torturer raised his own tiny pistol, shooting through the plastic tarp hanging in the doorway before the Executioner could even pull the trigger.

Bolan cut loose with the .44 Magnum to make certain that the Zetas gunmen had something to focus on. The room filled with flying lead, bullets cutting through the walls and plastic alike. Bolan threw himself to the ground. The lab coat guy, however, was not so fast to react.

Rifle slugs chopped into his chest, throwing him back over the bins he’d been hiding behind earlier. He reached toward Bolan, fingers stretching and clawing for mercy.

“Physician, heal thyself,” the Executioner said.

He brought up the Beretta 93R and cut loose, the silencer smothering any telltale flicker from the sleek machine pistol. He focused on one of the enemy muzzle flashes, and suppressed slugs hit one of the gunmen in the head. The other opponent continued blasting away, but he was on the move, trying not to make himself an easy target.

Bolan blew out the guy’s knee with another tri-burst, and he fell to the ground. The rifle clattered across the floor. The man scrambled to remove his sidearm from its holster, but Bolan stopped him in the act, sending a trio of bullets into the sentry’s skull.

The gunfire had drawn more guards to the basement, and they sent two grenades down the steps ahead of them. Bolan supported Teresa Blanca’s body with one arm and flipped the steel table with the other. He crouched behind the shrapnel-proof barrier as sheets of shell fragments and notched wire clanged off its surface.

Bolan lowered Blanca to the floor gently. He sent a quiet prayer to the universe to watch over her spirit, and reloaded the Beretta.

Bolan kept the machine pistol handy as he grabbed his last banger from his harness and pulled the pin, counting down as the fuse burned. When the time was right, he dropped the grenade into the middle of the group of guards who’d followed their own bombs down the stairs. Bolan released a loud bellow, equalizing the internal and external pressure on his ears to protect himself from the sound of the explosion.

Bolan rose from behind the steel table and stepped through the shredded plastic sheet. Blinded and deafened foes staggered helplessly around the room. The Executioner lived up to his name, putting bullets into the brains of the trio of Zetas guards directly in front of him. He holstered the machine pistol and pulled out the AK.

A sentry to the right of him was leaning against a wall, pressing his forearm against his eyes in an effort to restore his burned-out vision. Bolan sliced him in half with a burst from the AK, then turned and spotted another man, blinking and raising his rifle one-handed to gun him down. Bolan sidestepped, aimed the AK with both hands, and tore open the gunman from crotch to throat.

Bolan headed toward the staircase, doing the math on the diminished guard force. There would be two men left at most, plus the guy he’d left unconscious in the hall closet.

His AK was low on ammo, so he drew his Desert Eagle from his hip holster. The door at the top of the stairs was closed—the perfect spot for a gunman to wait him out. Bolan dumped the current magazine in the .44 Magnum and slid in a stick of copper-solid hunting bullets. Pure homogenous copper from nose to tail, these slugs were meant to penetrate the heaviest hides in nature. For the Executioner’s purpose, they would tear through walls easily, while causing massive destruction to human flesh.

He loaded the magazine, racked the slide and put the first heavyweight round into the barrel. He paused to scoop up the conventional hollow point and pocket it, not wanting to waste his ammunition. Then he fired two shots through the drywall on either side of the door. The high speed slugs struck and plowed through the plaster, their mass and velocity preventing any deflection. Bolan heard a scream as a man on the other side was hit.

A second guy kicked the door open, and Bolan put a round right into his opponent’s rifle. The gun shattered in the man’s grasp, saving his life, for the moment. Bolan continued up the stairs as another figure staggered into view. It was the man he’d clobbered before, and he’d rearmed himself.

Another stroke of the Desert Eagle’s trigger, and the Executioner all but beheaded him, the copper slug destroying the man’s jaw and blasting out the bottom of his skull. By the time the soldier reached the top of the steps, the man who’d lost his rifle had raced out of the kitchen, leaving the back door bouncing on its frame.