Grave Mercy. Don Pendleton

to heal, regaining much of its lost might and vigor.

      Bolan had first followed Rudd into the butter five days before, but the soldier had one pang of regret though he was no longer subjected to searing pain like a knife in his lungs after doing wind sprints on the sand. The injuries that had kept him here for this brief span of heaven were no longer a hindrance. He easily hoisted young groms onto his shoulders as they begged to see the world from eight feet in the air. Staying here for more than another day or two, healing, was no longer an option.

      The Executioner hopped to a crouched position, his feet and hands on the board as he settled his balance, the sleek shell maintaining its forward momentum as it rushed into the coming swell. As he steered the board by gripping its smooth sides, he got the right angle and rose to his full height. His mass pushed the board against the opposing force of the coming wave, and in a heartbeat, he was lifted effortlessly onto the crest. The power of the ocean beneath him was akin to an Asian elephant he’d ridden in Thailand when battling a Chinese heroin ring. Like that powerful pachyderm, the wave didn’t notice Bolan’s added mass, continuing on its course without pause. In the Thai jungles, he had been able to steer the beast through a den of vicious Chinese gunmen, the mighty elephant carrying him like a living tank through the battle.

      The ocean, however, dwarfed that seemingly endless might, accepting no commands from knee prods against its neck. Where Bolan had been only barely able to direct his pachyderm on its charge of destruction, the Caribbean Sea accepted no commands, took no orders. Instead the soldier had to aim the surfboard, his sharp eyes and instincts feeling for furrows and paths of least resistance as the wave rose behind him.

      It was exhilarating and humbling in the same primal instant. Bolan had the freedom of a winged god, yet was at the mercy of cosmic gravitational vortices that hurled the Earth and the moon around the sun at millions of miles per hour. Balanced precariously, he skimmed over the surface of the ocean as swift as an arrow, mere pivots of his hips enabling him to adjust his course, compensating for gravity and the swelling sea beneath him. It wasn’t true flight, just like his parachuting or his free falls, it was “falling with style” to quote one movie. Still, with the wind in his face and the sea at his back, he hurled along, arms spread to take in the sun and the breeze, drinking in the wonders of the Earth before the wave’s push and gravity’s pull overwhelmed the delicate balance.

      He finally ditched into four-foot-deep water, the incompressible fluid cushioning his torso and head as he dived in, pulling up before he dug his face into the sediment at the bottom. Behind him, the neoprene leash around his ankle connecting him to his board yanked the fiberglass hull into his ankle and shin. His lower legs no longer sparked sharp jolts of pain from the glancing impacts as the board cracked on them. Bolan’s bruises had developed into “surf bumps” days ago.

      With a shrug of his long arms and strong shoulders, he propelled himself to the surface. The right shoulder’s cut had long since closed, and the skin fused shut without fear of opening up again after its two-week reprieve. One stroke had brought him up to suck in air, and he twisted to grab his board, scrabbling on top of it. A deep intake of air no longer was an exercise in masochism. There was still pain, but it was a dull, throbbing pulse, telling Bolan that the flexing bones of his ribs were almost good enough for him to return to duty without fear of physical failure.

      A day, two at the most, and the Executioner would launch himself back into action.

      Spaulding had been right, Bolan mused as he kicked out to meet more swells. It would have been criminal to have lived in this stretch of Earth where land, sea and sky intersected to form the surest proof that the universe didn’t solely exist to punish humanity. Joy and mercy were rare sights in the spheres where the Executioner traveled, and he could easily have fallen into the fallacious trap that reality held only cruelty and suffering. Even a minute basking under this sun, smelling this forest, listening to the hushed whispers of this surf, had washed away the caked layers of cynicism that had threatened to darken his heart of hearts.

      Life was good here.

      Bolan couldn’t feel disheartened by the duties that pulled him away from this affirming environment. The tranquil peace, broken only by the laughter of children and the crash of waves was a reminder of the things that he fought for.

      This gentle realm was the spur for the Executioner’s War Everlasting. The violence that Bolan brought to bear against the savagery of criminals, terrorists and other violent predators was a firebreak. He was the wall between civilization and the corrupters who looked for an easy way to feed whatever their greedy hearts desired. A week among kids and beach bums had renewed his touch with humanity. It returned faces to what could have too easily become an abstract concept of innocence, and enabled him to return to the shadows around the world, stalking those who’d bolster themselves with pain and suffering.

      Bolan mounted the surfboard, dangling a leg on either side of it as if he were riding a fiberglass horse. He ran his fingers through his wet black hair, cool blue eyes scanning the horizon where the sky drooped to meet the Caribbean Sea.

      It was beautiful, another glorious sight in a world full of them. Though Bolan would soon have to leave, he kept a realistic appreciation of the seascape. He had been on every continent in the world, and had visited most of the major island chains, summoned to engagements against murderers and conquerors on every one. This was far from his first visit to Jamaica and given the piracy, drug smuggling and other pursuits of the criminal mind, the Executioner would once more come back to the island nation that held this small cradle of placid joy.

      His fighting energies had been built back up, and they were trying to rush Bolan’s injured parts to heal so that they could turn themselves toward productive ventures in the Executioner’s endless crusade to protect all that was good and civilized in the world. He was thinking about the hints and whispers of trouble that hummed in the daily news, clues that would be far more blatant if Bolan had access to the threat matrix gathered at Stony Man Farm, a plug-in roster of unrest and violence that were symptoms of diseases to which he had to bring his cleansing flame.

      The most blatant bit of news was the discovery of a yacht found adrift, no crew on board, and no signs of violence. Several young college students, here on spring break, had disappeared without a trace. It was nothing new in Jamaican waters as the fabled “pirates of the Caribbean” had evolved over the centuries, trading in their flintlocks for M-16s and their rowboats for Zodiac rafts with high-horsepower engines on the back. There were other small news passages about a couple of fishing boats that had gone missing. However, since the crews weren’t made up of beautiful, young American tourists, the news agencies didn’t care about them. It had been two fishing trawlers, their combined crews at thirty, also gone as if snatched by the ghosts of the sea.

      One part of Bolan wanted to kick his surfboard out past the breakers and carve some more waves, but the Executioner was already mentally organizing a map approximated from the missing fishermen and tourists’ last-known locations. He’d call to confirm his estimations, either pulling in favors from local law enforcement, or in a last resort, taking his inquiries electronically to the Farm to get the cyberteam’s assistance. The only other snarl in his plans to take war to the mystery kidnappers was that most of his gear had gone back to the States with Jack Grimaldi while Bolan recovered from his wounds. All he had with him right now was an Atomic Aquatics titanium dive knife in a sheath strapped to his right calf. The closest thing to firepower that he possessed were two 9-mm Beretta pistols in a lockbox, hidden from view of both children and gun thieves looking to make some money on the black market. Normally, Bolan would have tried to keep the discreet little Beretta PX4 Compact concealed, but shirtless and without a belt for his drawstring-waisted surfer shorts, he had no options.

      Luckily for Bolan, among surfers, dive knives in calf sheaths were about as common as cell phone holsters in New York City.

      It still wasn’t the kind of arsenal that the Executioner would need to blitz a piracy operation, but Bolan could take his first steps, making do with weapons acquired from his enemies. Low supplies did little to slow a Bolan blitz, such as when he was living hand to mouth with barely enough money to buy gunpowder to make his own ammunition.

      Another wave broke over his thighs, Bolan and the board bobbing