Grave Mercy. Don Pendleton

sagging in its socket, was as paralyzing as the dart that had taken him on the yacht.

      “Good morning, children!” Morrot boomed, his slender arms spread wide. Now that the disfigured doctor had stepped back, Rojas could see the man in full. He wore a short-sleeved, olive-colored T-shirt that was covered by a maroon-and-purple-stained butcher’s apron. The slender limbs were deceptive in their thinness, as Morrot was a tall man, easily six foot six, and those arms were corded with muscle that flexed with every movement. The horrible damage to the left side of the man’s face extended down his neck and to his upper left arm, stringy tendrils of skin spiderwebbed over a raw, red surface.

      Around him, Rojas’s companions from the yacht let out their fright in any way they could, from guttural throat constrictions to piercing whines through nostrils. Morrot seemed to bathe in the captives’ fear, letting it wash over him like a refreshing drizzle breaking up a steamy, hot and ugly day.

      Morrot took a deep breath, then lowered his gaze to the prisoners as a masked assistant, wearing a white coat and scrub pants approached him, carrying a tray laden with syringes. “It’s time to open your minds and say ‘ah.’”

      Rojas and his companions tried to scream past their gags, but all that came out were panicked whines through their noses.

      THE YOUNG PUNK rocker paused as she stood beside the idling Jeep, regarding a convalescing Mack Bolan as he swung in a hammock. He could still taste the hint of cherry on his lips, the silken softness of her pink-and-blond hair a fresh sensation on his fingers. Honey’s dark red lips pursed as she blew him a kiss.

      Bolan casually caught it with his good hand, and he returned a salute to the tough woman. The driver of the Jeep leaned on the horn to get Honey’s attention, eliciting a middle finger for him. She gave one last lingering look to the soldier, then jumped into the back.

      Tires ground at the dirt road, kicking up a cloud that did nothing to hamper the verdant slashes of color beneath a sky as crystal clear blue as a painting. This place was paradise, so close to the beach that he could smell the salt of the sea and gentle rush of waves. Children carried surfboards from a small hut, waving to the soldier as he reclined in the hammock.

      Bolan waved back to the kids. Honey had arranged for him to stay with a friend of hers, Anton Spaulding, at the Jamaican surf camp he owned. Spaulding was an exceptional host, laid back and gentle, the epitome of the surfer lifestyle, having built his dream home in the pleasant, peaceful woods.

      Spaulding walked toward the hammock, clad only in blue-and-white palm-frond-patterned surfer shorts. His skin was browned from constant exposure to the sun, his hair a dirty blend of sun-bleached blond and dark brunette that fell haphazardly over his forehead and ears. His blue eyes gleaming over a broken nose.

      “Shame to see her go,” he said, leaning on one of the trees holding Bolan’s hammock.

      “She has things to do. Better things than looking after me,” Bolan replied with a chuckle.

      Spaulding smirked. “I don’t know. Looked like leaving was harder for her than pulling a tooth.”

      “Wasn’t easy for me, either,” Bolan said. Glass clinked, and he turned to see Spaulding hold up a pair of beer bottles.

      “I’m not sure if these will go well with your painkillers.”

      Bolan smiled. “I try to limit the chemicals that go into me. Alcohol, too, but…”

      “When it’s time to relax, you got the beer.”

      The two men chuckled. A convulsive twitch of muscle over one of Bolan’s healing ribs sent a spark of pain rushing through him. Still, it was a worthwhile exchange. With a twist, Bolan rolled out of the hammock. The stitch in his side started to fade as he accepted the beer bottle.

      “Finally moving now that Honey’s not around?”

      Bolan shot a glance at Spaulding. “What, you’re going to be my nursemaid now?”

      Spaulding shook his head. “No way, man. But she must have threatened you to keep you lying down.”

      “Combination of threats and pain.”

      “When do you think you’ll be out to join us in the butter?” Spaulding asked.

      Bolan had to remember he was at a surf camp to decipher that the bronzed young man was inquiring about when Bolan would take a few spins on a surfboard. “Once I don’t feel like I’m being kicked in the chest when I laugh. And by then, I should be on my way out of here.”

      “It’d be a shame.”

      Bolan frowned. “Trouble finds me easily. It’d be a shame if it landed here.”

      Spaulding began chuckling again. “This place is as far from trouble as you can get. That’s why Honey dropped you off here.”

      “I hope so,” Bolan answered.

      CHAPTER THREE

      The crystal clear waters of the Caribbean ocean felt good.

      Though Mack Bolan continued to feel the lingering ache of his broken ribs, he was still capable of kicking his feet as they dangled off of the back of the surfboard. He was propelling himself through crests and furrows in the water, aiming the tip of the fiberglass “plank” at oncoming swells.

      The soldier had surfed a few times between missions. The sport was one that was easy to pick up, but one of those things that took a lifetime to master. Bolan’s excellent conditioning and agility put him above the rank of rookie. The twenty-first-century board he was on was even more accommodating to his aching form as it was lightweight, but designed to support more than the weight of slight-limbed youths. Bolan could easily lift this plank, and it was shaped so that it could keep him afloat with any balanced weight on top.

      The exercise provided by his efforts at balance on the fiberglass hull was at once gentle on his tender ribs yet invigorating to his shoulders and abdominal muscles. Arms and legs, constantly flexing to make the most of his momentum when the wave caught him up and hurled him on, were eating up the exertion, re-strengthening their too-long-inert spring-steel tautness.

      As Spaulding soared past, hurtling along a “left”—a wave that’s tube extended from right to left—he gave Bolan a thumb’s up before he ducked down, letting the cresting wave form a pipe over his head. The soldier had seen the man tilting, pushing against the rising concave of the wave, seeming to defy gravity as he ground along the wall of water. Once inside the pipe, Spaulding was in a world that had to be experienced to be appreciated, a tunnel of serenity where a man or woman could disappear for a slice of time that seemed to last longer on the inside than outside, embraced by the ocean’s enormous power without any of the punishment of its potential death grip.

      Spaulding glided along the Jamaican shore, where there were no flesh-rending reefs, no bone-shattering rocks. Here was a place where the youngest students—known in the sporting community as “groms”—and veteran surfers could frolic. It was where this particular, injured soldier could rehabilitate without risk of exacerbating his injuries.

      Bolan had finally picked up one of Spaulding’s spare boards when Martin Rudd had shown him the physical rejuvenation qualities of surfing. Rudd had been a winter extreme sports photographer, a man who had skied and snowboarded down untamed mountainsides, skirting trees and boulders in search of a new day’s shot of adrenaline mixed with the majestic glory of snowcapped mountains splayed out in front of him. That ended when Rudd, skiing through a gap of boulders, snagged the tip of one ski on a jutting rock and spiral-fractured his right femur. Left with one thighbone an inch shorter than the other, Rudd had expected never to take to a slope again.

      Now, the forty-something “extreme” sportsman had found renewed strength and freedom on the pounding surf, enough to get him back onto mountainsides, if not doing stunts, then at least able to keep up and photograph the new wave of somersaulting snow devils. Rudd still suffered from a permanent limp, but it was from the disparate lengths of his legs, not because of the pain of a now fused