Dead Reckoning

FINAL PAYBACK

The United States consulate in Jordan is firebombed, its staff mercilessly killed. With the group responsible scattered to hideouts in war-torn hot spots around the globe, Mack Bolan has to hit these terrorists hard before they can warn one another.

Soon Bolan is turning safe houses and desert refuges into killing fields as he battles to take down the terrorists three by three. But the last of the group vanishes just as Bolan discovers their ultimate target: an international conference in Switzerland headed by the American President. The world’s leaders are caught in the crosshairs, and the Executioner has to stop the splinter group before they strike a global deathblow.

The gunner in the Mercedes van cut loose with another burst

Bolan’s assault rifle spit flame, and the chase car’s left headlight exploded. His volley was too low and too far to the right as Grimaldi swerved to avoid incoming bullets, spoiling the Executioner’s aim.

He fired another short burst, strafing the van’s narrow grille. The fusillade wouldn’t stop the Mercedes immediately, but an overheated engine could slow them in the short run.

They had reached the last paved road before the riverbank, crossing from east to west, while north-south drivers blared their horns, shook fists and shouted curses in the Audi’s wake.

Road rage. Damn right.

The van was crossing the river, pursuing them, with the biker trailing it, decelerating now that he knew where the fight was headed. Bolan hoped the guy would be smart, turn back and live to see another day...

But that wasn’t Bolan’s call. He had four men to take out, at least, before they finished him.

Dead Reckoning

Don Pendleton

Justice delayed is justice denied.

—William E. Gladstone

Justice may be late sometimes, but it’s inevitable. I don’t judge my targets. I am their executioner.

—Mack Bolan

For John Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

Quote

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Zarqa, Jordan

The mob was heating up outside. Its rhythmic chanting of the past two hours had given way to random shouts and jeers from individuals amid the larger, heaving mass of human fury. Rocks were flying, and if experience was any guide, Molotov cocktails wouldn’t be too far behind.

Mark Hamilton stood watching on a closed-circuit television, since the US consulate had no external windows. It was basically a bunker, the design dictated by security concerns, with eight-foot concrete walls around it, topped by razor wire.

That wouldn’t stop the mob, if its excited members were determined to get in.

“Still no police?”

Hamilton turned to face his aide, Arnie Connelly. “Not yet.”

“Jesus, how long does it take?”

Hamilton shrugged. They both knew members of Jordan’s national Public Security Force should have shown up by then, if they were coming. Their headquarters, another bunker, stood roughly half a mile from the consulate, a five-minute drive at rush hour, even without lights and sirens.

“They’re hanging us out to dry,” Connelly said.

“We’re not hung yet,” Hamilton answered, trying to sound confident.

The trouble, this time, had blown up out of nowhere. Back in the States, in some southern backwater, a crackpot preacher short on congregants and craving national publicity had hatched a plan to gain recruits and pocket their donations with a protest against Islam. Picking up a couple dozen copies of the Koran—likely the only ones for sale in his reactionary cotton-picking state, Hamilton suspected—he had invited all and sundry to a grand book-burning ceremony, featuring a barbecue, a bluegrass band and his incessant pleas for money to support his “great, important work.”

Predictably, the Muslim world had gone insane.

Now, here he was with Connelly, one other staff member, and two US Marines, manning a bunker in the middle of the night, a lynch mob at their gate.

Great time to be a diplomat.

Most people in the States couldn’t explain the difference between an embassy and a consulate. Embassies were the larger, more important facilities, defined as permanent diplomatic missions, generally located in a foreign nation’s capital city. Consulates, by contrast, were smaller outposts, normally sited in tourist cities, where they handled minor problems involving visas, travelers’ problems, and wheedling complaints from expatriates. They had smaller staffs, fewer guards, less prestige.

Zarqa was not a tourist town, per se. There were no tourist towns in Jordan, at least so far as jet-setting Americans were concerned. Zarqa was Jordan’s second-largest city, with a population of 481,000, and housed more than fifty percent of all Jordan’s factories, fouling the air till it hardly lived up to its own name’s translation: “the Blue One.” Zarqa also moved about ten percent of Jordan’s exports—leather goods and clothing, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

That meant that while sun-baked foreign tourists were in short supply, the city saw its share of Western businessmen, wheeling and dealing in suits that cost more than Hamilton earned in a month. Few of them visited the consulate, preferring to discuss their needs with the ambassador in Amman, but Hamilton was there, in case one of their trophy secretaries lost her purse and didn’t think the native cops were suitably outraged.

“What’s Rigby doing?” Hamilton inquired.

“Burning a lot of papers.”

“Shit!”

Hamilton left his aide staring at the monitors and went to find Cale Rigby in his office. Rigby was supposed to be a cultural attaché, which was not-so-secret code for CIA. Their spook in residence, he was involved in God knew what, lording it over Hamilton and Connelly as if he were the consul, and the pair of them were just his flunkies.

Then again, given the climate of the times and the leanings of the State Department back in Washington, he might be right.

Hamilton didn’t knock before he entered Rigby’s office—still the only one he’d ever seen that had its own incinerator in one corner, with a stovepipe routed through the outer wall. Rigby was sitting in his roller chair, with the incinerator door open in front of him, feeding the flames with documents one handful at a time.

“You think we’re that bad off?” Hamilton asked.

The CIA man didn’t bother facing him. “We could be screwed,” he answered, “but it doesn’t matter. This is protocol.”

“All of your hard work, up in smoke.”

“No sweat. It’s all on file at Langley, anyway.”

The first shot sounded like a firecracker outside, but Hamilton could tell the difference. His bunker had been strafed and stoned before, though never by a mob this size, so furious.

“Better go check that out,” Rigby advised, dropping another wad of top-secret reports into the fire.

* * *

THE FIRST SHOT was a signal, nothing more. Saleh Kabeer checked his Rolex watch and saw that it came right on time. He trusted other members of his team to hear and carry out the orders he had drilled into their heads over the past two weeks, in preparation for this moment.

He was grateful to the backwoods bigot in America who had devised a plan to outrage all of Islam at a single stroke. Without him, Kabeer would have had to plan a local incident himself, whip up the necessary anger to collect a mob and go from there. This stroke of luck, headlined and amplified by Muslim news outlets from Nigeria to Indonesia, was surely a gift from God to aid his endeavor.

Given the time and opportunity, Kabeer thought he might send the scrawny Crusader a fruit basket, as thanks. Of course, the fruit would all be poisoned.

Kabeer was supervising the attack, which he had also planned from its beginning as a spark of rage against the West. His group was not yet large enough to tackle major targets, but this would be a decent start. His young men were the best, most dedicated he could find, all disillusioned by the endless talk and feeble action from al-Qaeda and al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, craving battle and glory.

Starting this night, their wish would be fulfilled.

* * *

“JESUS! YOU SEE THAT?” Connelly blurted out.

It was impossible to miss. Someone had thrown a grappling hook over the razor wire topping the consulate’s south wall and was hauling in its line, ripping the coiled wire from its moorings. “And there’s another one!”

He turned and followed Connelly’s finger, pointing toward the west wall’s monitor. Same thing and same result. Within another minute, maybe less, the north and east walls both had broad gaps in their curly razor wire. A moment after that, he saw the ladders going up. Dark, nimble figures scrambled over, dropping down inside the walls.

Welcome to US soil, Hamilton thought. For whatever that’s worth.

Not much, this night, with no police in evidence and only two Marines to guard the consulate. He’d issued orders not to fire on anyone unless the building was invaded, then use common sense in self-defense. Hamilton knew Marines were tough, but two of them could no more stop a mob of hundreds—was it thousands, now?—than they could stop a tidal wave with sandbags and harsh language.

Five men altogether, in the consulate, and what would happen if he broke out extra guns for Connelly and himself? Would it make any difference to the inevitable outcome?

Hamilton had already phoned the embassy, not once, but half a dozen times. Their answer was the same each time he called: Hang on. Help’s coming.

So was Christmas, but the way things looked right now, Hamilton doubted he’d be celebrating it. More likely, he would be the ghost of Christmas past.

“Look! That guy’s got a rifle!”

By the time Hamilton turned, the man Connelly had seen was on the ground and out of sight. Another one came close behind him, though, and this one definitely had some kind of military rifle slung across his back, together with a heavy-looking satchel.

Ammunition? High explosives? Hamilton was betting that the gunman hadn’t scaled their wall to drop off a petition or his dirty laundry.

“We need to get out of here!” Connelly said.

Too late, Hamilton thought.

“And go where?” he inquired.

“Pile in the Hummer,” Connelly answered. “Rush the gate. Whoever tries to stop us, run them down or shoot them. Make it to the embassy.”

That might work, in an action movie, but the gates were fortified to keep a semi tractor rig from smashing through. The Hummer in their motor pool could take down a few rioters, but it could never part the human sea outside their walls. It was a fantasy.

“You want a shotgun?” he asked Connelly.

“What? Um...well...”

A flash of light on one monitor screen, accompanied by thunder in the building, told Hamilton that the bunker was breached. They had minutes left, maybe seconds, before the mob reached them. Hamilton turned to his aide, hand extended, smiling into Connelly’s pallid, panicked face.

“It’s been good working with you, Arnie,” Hamilton declared. Connolly was stunned, too terrified to answer, much less shake his hand.

“Um...um...”

Shouting and gunfire erupted in the hallway, drawing closer by the second.

Calm now, Hamilton turned toward the door he’d locked behind him, coming back from Rigby’s office. Thinking of his wife and daughter, he put on a smile and waited for the end.

CHAPTER ONE

Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

“It’s freaking hot down here,” Jack Grimaldi complained, lifting off his baseball cap to draw a handkerchief across his sweaty brow.

“It’s South America,” Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, answered from the meager shade cast by his Tilley hat.

“Hot,” Grimaldi echoed. “Like I said.”

They were on Avenida los Yerbales, near the sprawling greenery of Parque Jose Asuncion Flores, looking for a man who dealt in death. Their quarry didn’t advertise himself that way—in fact, his neighbors knew him as an importer of farming implements and sporty motorcycles—but behind the public face, familiar from his television commercials, the guy pursued a thriving trade in weapons.

Paraguayan law mandated record keeping for acquisition, possession and transfer of all privately owned firearms, yet no statute regulated activities of arms brokers or transfer intermediaries. Authorities claimed that one million guns, both registered and otherwise, were owned by Paraguay’s people.

“We’re here,” Grimaldi said, standing at ease while foot traffic eddied around him.

Bolan eyed the tractor showroom, looking for a trap, and came up empty. The interior was air-conditioned, almost frosty next to the oppressive humidity outside. Before they’d had a chance to look around, he saw the owner moving toward them, flashing the electric TV smile.

“Good day, gentlemen. How may I serve you?” the dealership owner said in Spanish.

Bolan bit the bullet on the coded answer and replied in English. “We’re concerned with pest control.”

The famous smile lost just a hint of luster, then came back full-force.

“Of course, if you will follow me.” Crossing the showroom, heading for a storage area, the man called out, “Antonio! You have the floor.”

In the back, he led them to a steel door, tapped out numbers on its keypad, then they descended to an air-conditioned basement. The “armory” contained a cornucopia of killing hardware racked or hung on walls, some of the larger pieces free-standing on tripods. Crates of ammunition made a double row running the full length of the space, stacked chest-high beneath fluorescent lights.

“Gentlemen, what I have is yours,” he said, then added, “For a price, of course.”

“Of course,” Bolan acknowledged.

He was flush with cash from his last mission in the Bahamas, liberated from a narco-trafficker who didn’t need it anymore. The mony had been converted into Paraguayan currency at the going rate. Browsing, Bolan chose a Steyr AUG assault rifle, backed up by a Glock 22 autoloader in .40-caliber S&W. Grimaldi agreed with Bolan on the Glock but picked a Spectre M4 submachine gun for his lead weapon. Suppressors all around, with ample extra magazines and ammunition to feed their deadly tools.

Bolan switched next to heavy hitters, picking out a Neopup PAW-20 grenade launcher. Designed and manufactured in South Africa, the Neopup fired 20 mm point detonating rounds from a 7-round detachable box magazine, with an advertised effective range of 400 meters. For closer work, he took a case of U.S.-made M-67 frag grenades, in standard use throughout the Western Hemisphere and well beyond.

For cutting tools, Bolan bought an all-steel Randall Model 18 survival knife with a 7.5-inch blade honed to razor sharpness. Grimaldi made do with a six-inch Italian switchblade, basic black.

“Reminds me of the old home neighborhood,” he said, wearing a crooked grin.

With pistol shoulder rigs and other stray accessories, the price was staggering—at least, in Paraguayan currency. Bolan paid up in one-hundred-thousand guaraní banknotes, significantly lightening his roll, but leaving plenty for their travel and emergencies. Bidding the tractor man farewell, they lugged four heavy duffel bags back to their rented Hyundai Accent.

“Next stop?” Grimaldi asked, when he was at the wheel.

“Lay of the land,” Bolan replied.

Ciudad del Este was Paraguay’s second-largest city and capital of the Alto Paraná Department. It was a chaotic, crowded place, hosting thousands of foreign tourists per year. Visitors were drawn by counterfeit Viagra, exotic pets, pirated CDs or DVDs, and weapons like the stash riding in the backseat of Bolan’s rental.

None of that had drawn the Executioner to Ciudad del Este.

He was looking for specific men, and he had payback on his mind.

* * *

BOLAN’S TARGETS HAD chosen Paraguay for its place on the Triple Frontier. The name referred to a tri-border region where the Iguazú and Paraná rivers converged, bringing Paraguay into kissing contact with neighbors Argentina and Brazil. The US State Department claimed, with evidence to back it up, that thousands of Lebanese inhabiting the region funneled cash to terrorist groups including al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Egypt’s al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya. That was possible, in part, because Paraguay, for all its pious claims of dedication to the war on terrorism, had no laws against financing foreign insurrectionary groups. Such laws as did exist, meanwhile, were hamstrung by the country’s rank political corruption and its weak judicial system

The men Bolan was hunting were among the world’s most wanted fugitives. Unwanted might have been a better way to phrase it, since no country publicly supported them or made them welcome as official refugees. The FBI had placed three-million-dollar bounties on their heads, sixteen in all, for a payday of forty-eight million if someone could bring them together in one place, then blow the whistle.

So far, there’d been no takers.

Bolan didn’t hunt for money, and his lead to Paraguay had come around the hard way, through concerted effort and relentless digging, biometric facial recognition software and the spiteful word of an informer who had lost his woman to a fugitive’s seductive charm. In Washington, there’d been discussion of a covert military op—deploying navy SEALs, maybe a killer drone—but either one could backfire, big-time, in the theater of bitter politics. Americans had come so far from a consensus on the simplest things that no one cared to risk an act of war in South America.

Enter the Executioner.

“Are we firm on this address?” Grimaldi asked, wheeling the Hyundai along Calle Victor Hugo Norte, less than a quarter-mile west of the Rio Paraná and the Brazilian frontier.

“They were confirmed here yesterday,” Bolan replied. “Hanging with Hezbollah.”

“A meeting of the minds?”

“Or something.”

Hezbollah was well entrenched along the Triple Frontier, collaborating with similar groups on occasion, skirmishing with them when tempers flared over logistics or fine points of Muslim doctrine. They were Shi’ites, modestly labeled the Party of God, and if a person bought that one, he or she might also believe that Jesus smiled upon the Ku Klux Klan.

One thing about extremists, Bolan had discovered during years of hunting them. Most could be flexible enough to deal with kindred souls of alternate persuasions in the short-term, if it profited both sides.

Sometimes, like now.

The target was a former tenement that Hezbollah had purchased from its slumlord owner for a song, assisted by the standard offer he couldn’t refuse, then remodeled into two-bedroom apartments with a storefront office at street level, serving double duty as a mosque and faith-based charity soliciting donations on behalf of Middle Eastern refugees. The mosque preached war against the West; the money donated for displaced persons went, in fact, to Hezbollah’s war chest. As for the eighteen apartments, six to a floor, they housed members of Hezbollah and anyone they favored with accommodations for a stopover.

How many gunmen could a two-bedroom apartment hold? Plenty.

Say, four on average, and the total was over seventy. If they were really crowded in, it could be double that, without counting the mosque and office space downstairs.

A simple way would be to bring the whole place down. Strategic high-explosive charges, detonated simultaneously or in swift succession, could collapse the building with all hands inside, ensuring that they didn’t live to fight another day. It was effective but completely indiscriminate.

And Bolan needed to be sure that certain targets were included when he made his sweep.

Three names, three faces were to be scratched off Bolan’s list. But first, he needed further leads to their associates, directions to wherever they had burrowed in, waiting to surface once the present storm had passed.

None of the men he hunted would be likely to cooperate. Bolan took that for granted and had come prepared—both physically and mentally—to do whatever might be necessary. Torture wasn’t something he condoned or trusted, having seen men lie outrageously to stop the pain, say anything their tormentors desired to make it end.

But the flip side of that was his determination not to take “no” for an answer.

“Ready?” Bolan asked.

Grimaldi nodded, then answered, “As I’ll ever be.”

* * *

GRIMALDI WAS READY for damn near anything. He hadn’t flown forty-seven hundred miles to sit on the sidelines and watch Bolan do all the work, or to gripe about odds that were stacked against them. That was the name of the game as he’d learned years ago, when Bolan had snatched him out of his old life—long story—and set Grimaldi on a new path unexpectedly.

For the better, sure, but not without risks.

And what was life without risk?

Their plan was relatively simple when they’d sketched it: breeze in through the building’s office space and make their way upstairs from there, in broad daylight, three specific faces foremost in their minds while they were taking out the trash. Spare one or more of those until they could be squeezed for information, preferably at another site, removed from what was bound to be a bloodbath. When a plan like that was put into practice, though, there was a tendency for things to go to hell.

The good news: everyone inside the building should be hard-core Hezbollah, except the trio at the top of Bolan’s hit list. Once they got inside, it was a free-fire zone, no quarter asked or offered, and their sole constraint was time. How long before police arrived to intervene, assuming that they came at all?

The Paraguayan National Police had roughly 22,000 officers nationwide, spread over 157,000 square miles of city and jungle, riding herd on nearly seven million citizens, plus tourists, drifters and the like. Police might show up at a crime scene late or not at all, depending on the victims’ status in society.

With Hezbollah involved, who knew what might go down?

Grimaldi double-checked his submachine gun, with its casket magazine containing fifty 9 mm Parabellum rounds. The Spectre M4 had a double-action trigger, which allowed the safety to be disengaged without a risk of accidental firing under any normal circumstances, and a shrouded barrel to facilitate cooling. He’d have to watch it, or the cyclic rate of fourteen rounds per second would devour a magazine in nothing flat. But Grimaldi had used the gun before and liked its feel, its firepower and its reliability. The suppressor he had screwed on to its threaded muzzle would prevent the gun from climbing in full-auto mode, as well as muffling the racket that it made.