Salvador Strike. Don Pendleton

      

      It was time to take his leave

      Mack Bolan increased the Mustang’s speed, determined not to let Guerra’s men get away. Inside the large, nylon bag on the seat next to him was an arsenal of assorted weapons for making war.

      Bolan raced toward the carnage ahead of him and slammed on the brakes at the last moment, swinging his vehicle around to the outside of the sedan as he reached into the bag and withdrew the MP-5. He depressed the trigger and swept the vehicle. The bodies of the gunners danced under the massive assault. Bolan then yanked an M-67 high-explosive grenade and tossed it casually into the interior, before putting the Mustang in Reverse and backing out.

      The blast produced enough force to lift the car an inch or two off its wheels and settle it back to the pavement in a roaring crash.

      That would teach Mario Guerra a lesson—make him realize he and his Hillbangers weren’t quite as invincible as they had thought. And Guerra would learn one more thing very soon.…

      The Executioner was just getting started.

       Salvador Strike

       Don Pendleton’s

      The Executioner^®

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      The future of civilization depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness characterized by the thoughts of men today.

      —Albert Schweitzer

      1875–1965

      There are men whose abilities to contribute positive energies on the world are blinded by their greed and lust for power. It is those men who subject the innocent to meaningless and hopeless lives. I shall resist them in every waking moment.

      —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

      Prologue

      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

      Prologue

      Herndon, Virginia

      Gary Marciano, federal prosecutor for the Attorney General of the United States, studied the early-morning edition of the newspaper with immense satisfaction.

      Over his bowl of sliced bananas on oatmeal topped with milk and honey, Marciano reread the bold, front page headline: National Gang Members Charged with RICO Violations. At last! Several key members of MS-13 were in custody and based on the pages of testimony by his key witness—testimony submitted and leading to indictments by a federal grand jury last week—these domestic terror mongers wouldn’t be spreading any more violence or bloodshed for a long time, if ever again. The suburban neighborhoods of Virginia, Florida and California would be safer with those bastards out of the picture.

      Marciano thought of Ysidro Perez, the one brave soul who decided to get his life together and make a stand. With no thought for his own safety, Perez voluntarily stepped out on his homeboys in Virginia—a cell dubbed the Hillbangers by local law enforcement—to report on their activities and betray the sacred trust extended to him. Perez’s testimony had eventually led to not only the arrest of his leader, Mario Guerra, but six other high-ranking members from various cells throughout the United States.

      And that’s only the beginning, Marciano thought.

      The prosecutor dropped the paper on the table and turned to finishing his breakfast. The Bulova watch on his wrist, a Christmas present from his wife, told him he had only a few minutes before he had to leave for his office. Rush-hour traffic had grown worse over the past couple of years, as well as the construction of new homes in what had once been a quiet development, which ultimately tacked more than twenty minutes onto what had once been a ten-minute commute. It took him nearly a half hour to drive barely ten miles.

      Sad, that’s what it was.

      Marciano finished about half of his breakfast and then rose, scraped the remainder into the garbage can and rinsed out the bowl. He left it in the sink, confident Caroline would take care of it like she always did. Faithful and diligent, his adoring wife had stayed home with their three kids during their early years, but when the youngest finally reached seventh grade, she took a job selling real estate in a booming market. Marciano knew she was a shoo-in for such a position; it suited Caroline’s impeccable tastes and uncanny ability to match the right perspective buyer with the right place.

      They didn’t really need the money. Investment proceeds from the sale and dissolution of his private practice with several equal partners in a Washington law firm had provided a more than adequate windfall. But Marciano couldn’t stop practicing law any more than a fish could stop swimming. So with a change in administration at the White House and the appointment of a close friend to Attorney General, Marciano transformed his practice from protecting major corporations from exploitation to going up against those who challenged the law of the land.

      “So you view yourself as a crusader?” a member of the press had asked him right after the AG announced his appointment.

      “Not at all,” he replied with a smile. “I’m simply a concerned citizen.”

      That had brought a titter from the wall-to-wall bodies packing the press room at the Justice Department and a commendation from his boss on the way he’d handled the questioners in such a suave fashion.

      Now entering his third year with the Attorney General, Marciano had made a number of influential friends, not least among them a man he’d truly