Hostile Odds. Don Pendleton

might be responsible for another attack on American soil had practically sent his two subordinates into a fit. What they didn’t know, either because they were too blind or too afraid to admit it, was that domestic terrorist activities across the Northwest had increased in recent months. Winnetka didn’t know exactly who or what, but he couldn’t ignore the signs. The Pentagon would call him paranoid, maybe even suggest he take some leave to reconsider his assertions without hard evidence, but at least he could prove this had been a wanton attack against the United States Air Force and not just a training accident. Either way, he needed help on this—a specialized kind of help.

      And he had no idea where to find it.

      1

      Mack Bolan stared at a face of death through the crosshairs of a Bushnell 6 x 42 electronic scope.

      He tightened the ergonomic stock of the SIG-Sauer SSG-300 against his shoulder and took a deep breath. The Swiss had designed the rifle to provide high accuracy stats, increasing the one-shot kill probability by a factor of ten, and the 7.62 mm NATO rounds averaged a muzzle velocity of eight hundred meters per second. The rifle would do the job nicely in Bolan’s hands.

      Organized crime had brought the Executioner to the sleepy town of Tulelake in northern California. In fact, the Gowan crime Family had taken over all the vice action throughout Siskiyou County, from prostitution and drugs to a comprehensive numbers racket. The Executioner had spent the past month in meticulous soft probes of the communities throughout the county, and one thing remained consistent: Mickey Gowan’s fingers were into a very large pie. Mack Bolan had a plan to chop them to nubs.

      He would start with Gowan’s right-hand man, Billy Moran.

      Bolan would have preferred to do this at some other place and time, but he’d seen an opportunity to bring down one of the big players in the Gowan crime Family without endangering bystanders. Moran and Gowan were almost never seen together other than behind the ten-foot-high walls of Gowan’s estate, additionally fortified by several dozen well-armed house soldiers. Bolan hadn’t let that dissuade him, however, since Moran was like most human beings—a creature of habit and therefore predictable. The Executioner decided to exploit that vulnerability to send a message loud and clear.

      He let out half his deep breath and squeezed the trigger. The big rifle boomed a thunderous report, but Bolan kept it rock steady against his shoulder until he verified the kill. Shock flashed across Moran’s face at the same moment his head snapped sideways at an odd angle. Blood and fragments of skull erupted from the wound, spraying the lieutenant who sat next to him, and then he disappeared behind the table at which he’d been sitting as the impact knocked him completely out of his seat.

      Bolan played the bolt smoothly and chambered a fresh round before the three bodyguards at Moran’s private table on the back patio of the Irish café could react. Moran’s lieutenant went next. The Executioner caught him with a clean shot to the center of the chest. The shot knocked him off his feet, and he crashed through the lead glass top of a neighboring table.

      Bringing another round home, Bolan sighted carefully on the third man, now concealed behind the thick ivy intertwined through the wrought-iron fencing that bordered the porch. Apparently, the goon figured the shooter couldn’t see him if he couldn’t see the shooter. He was wrong. Bolan took the guy with a shot center mass. The only sign of the hit was a geyser of blood that erupted over the top of the decorative fencing.

      Bolan policed his brass, then broke from his position at a wood line about one hundred and fifty yards from the restaurant. He’d specifically selected the spot not only for its distance but also because it would take someone time to reach the area remotely, and even longer for them to actually figure out from exactly where Bolan had fired the shots. By that time, the Executioner would be long gone.

      Bolan reached his rental car parked two hundred yards from the woods on a dirt access road. He buried the rifle in a predug pit just off the shoulder and covered it with natural leaves. He marked a tree near the brush with reactive chalk that would glow when sprayed with a reagent and then hightailed it out of there. If he did get pulled over by the local authorities, he certainly wouldn’t want them to find him with any weapons.

      As he left the dirt road and entered the city limits of Tulelake, he considered his next move. Word had it that Gowan used the numbers rackets to help launder money for parties unknown, a lot of which took place in underground gambling joints scattered throughout Siskiyou County. Bolan couldn’t help but wonder how those parties might feel if a whole bunch of the cash running through those joints suddenly came up missing. The warrior figured he’d find out soon enough.

      The Executioner just happened to have an address.

      THE BROWN-AND-GRAY HAZE of cigar and cigarette smoke clung in low clouds throughout the dimly lit room. A jazz-funk mix blared from unseen speakers in the background, competing with the steady din of voices, laughter and shouts of excitement. People were scattered around gaming tables of different venues, and with the décor, wall-length bar, cigarette and drink gals in miniskirts to complete the ensemble, Bolan got the impression he’d entered a 1930s speakeasy.

      After returning to his lodgings for a shower and change of clothes, Bolan drove to the popular joint just outside Tulelake on Highway 139. The Executioner paid his cover of five hundred in cash to a pair of gorillas watching the basement entrance and allowed them to pat him down. He felt naked without his constant companion, the Beretta 93-R, but drawing attention before the right time was the last thing he wanted to do. Better to play the game and wait it out, see what happened. Bolan mingled, played a couple hands of blackjack, cashed out when he reached two hundred dollars, and then lost the entire winnings along with an additional half bill at the only roulette table in the place. He played the other tables for the next two hours, keeping one eye on the game and the other on the room’s occupants, focusing on individual conversations.

      The sounds of a mild disturbance at the front entrance caught his attention, and he let his eyes rove in that direction while maintaining a discreet posture. He saw the two thugs hassle a shorter man with a dark suit and a haircut that spelled Fed. The newcomer had the smell of cop all over him, and while the hoods at the door might have suspected it, Bolan knew it for a fact because he’d met him early the previous morning.

      Bolan lost his final hand of the evening, dropped his remaining three chips on the dealer as a tip and moved toward the door at a casual pace. As he went to slide past the cop still trying to get in the door, the warrior slammed hard into the smaller man and nearly knocked him off his feet. The guy turned toward Bolan in irritation and opened his mouth, but the view shocked him into silence.

      The Executioner took his mind off it before the idiot got them both killed. “Sorry, Tiny, didn’t see you there.” He flashed the door guards a semiwicked grin and then walked out.

      The man continued arguing with the bouncers for another minute, probably just to make it look good, then joined Bolan outside the restaurant that sat directly above the underground club.

      “Why do I feel the compunction to punch your lights out?” Special Agent Jeff Kellogg demanded.

      “Lack of common sense,” Bolan said as he turned and headed for his car.

      “Wait a minute, Cooper!” Kellogg called, using Bolan’s cover name for the mission. The Fed trotted to get ahead of Bolan’s long strides. He stopped in the Executioner’s path and held up a hand, careful not to touch the imposing form. “I don’t know where you’re from or who you work for, but I thought I made it clear yesterday to butt out.”

      “I don’t take orders from you, Kellogg,” Bolan said flatly. “And don’t blame me because you couldn’t get in. You got any idea where you were just now?”

      Kellogg tried to look confident but seemed to falter under Bolan’s scrutiny.

      “I didn’t think so,” Bolan continued. “In case it escaped notice, you were facing off with Mickey Gowan’s boys.”

      “What? That’s impossible!”

      “And it’s exactly that kind