Desert Impact

BORDER ASSAULT

The murder of several border patrol agents in a moonlight attack seems like an average Mexican cartel ambush…until the killers’ weapons turn out to be U.S. military grade. There’s a leak in the local army base, and it needs to be plugged before more ordnance trucks south—and more innocent lives are taken. Mack Bolan heads into the desert to investigate.

But when an old ally is killed in a second assault, Bolan realizes he’s underestimated the threat. Whoever is behind the attack is not only smuggling weapons into Mexico, but also building a private army. And the kingpin is intent on spreading his reign of terror into America. With an unofficial war about to break out on the border, he must plan a strategic strike to take down the empire and eliminate all its key players. And this time, for the Executioner, it’s personal.

The Desert Eagle’s booming roar filled the air

Bolan took down the two men who tried to rush his position. That left two, both of whom had taken cover on the far side of his truck, shooting wildly. Panic was a wonderful field tool.

He opened up once more, hitting each man in the lower leg. The powerful weapon all but tore limbs off at this range. He worked his way around to the far side of the truck and finished the job.

Bolan scanned the area and saw nothing but bodies. On the ground near one of them, he spotted the radio and could hear his enemy demanding information.

He picked it up and keyed the mike. “That’s just the beginning,” he told the man. “I’ll see you and Sureno real soon.” He threw the radio to the ground and moved toward the nearby group of vehicles, hoping to find some supplies for his trek across the desert.

Perhaps he was tired, or perhaps he was simply too focused on his search. Either way, Bolan didn’t see the man who’d taken shelter in the backseat of the first car he approached until he lunged forward, gun in hand.

Desert Impact

Don Pendleton

Fast is fine, but accuracy is final.

—Wyatt Earp

I’m not interested in speed for its own sake. But I will do what it takes to catch up with those who would try to outrun their own judgment.

—Mack Bolan

THE

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 com-mand 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

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

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 1

The borderlands were nothing more than long stretches of desert, patches of sage and prickly mesquite trees. Old wooden fences and faded barbwire strands, and from time to time, a decent fence that some desperate rancher put up only to have it torn down by the illegals crossing everywhere but at the actual checkpoints. During the heat of the day, the sun glanced off hills and rocks, filling the arid land with shimmering illusions in the rippling heat. But the night...the night was altogether different. Under a full moon, the desert became a luminescent landscape filled with creatures on the hunt, no longer pinned down by the oppressive heat. Shadows pooled beneath rocky outcroppings and the hunting cries of owls echoed in the wind.

Colton Rivers, a field operations supervisor for the United States Border Patrol, stared out at the desert night, waiting to see if the intelligence they’d obtained was accurate. From California to Texas, some portions of the border were more porous than others. The Arizona border was Swiss cheese. He was based in Douglas, right across from Agua Prieta, Mexico, and every year the situation got worse. There was no explaining to the politicians that it wasn’t the number of officers that mattered, but the fact that a night in one of their cells was still a trip to heaven for many of the people who crossed over. Mexico was all but an undeclared war zone, and the drug lords were running most of the countryside. Sadly, fewer and fewer families were actually crossing the border in search of a better life—many families were just trying to get away. Other immigrants were drug and weapon runners—mules—and the thugs who transported people into the United States for outrageous fees.

The working life of a Border Patrol agent was getting more dangerous, too. Fewer men and women were willing to take the risks, in spite of decent pay and benefits, and of those who did, many were injured or killed every year. It wasn’t an easy job, and it was often damn thankless, but Rivers was proud to be doing it. Every time they made an arrest, it was one small step toward making the border more secure. Still, it was only a matter of time until the flood waters overwhelmed them, or worse, some terrorist found a way through the desert and into the United States with a dirty bomb. Rivers shook his head, bringing his mind back to the night’s mission.

A runner arrested two days before had told them that a large arms shipment was coming in, but Rivers was having a hell of a time believing that was the case. The full moon was practically a spotlight. A large vehicle would be far too easy to spot moving across the barren landscape.

“What do you think?” the man standing next to him asked. His name was Craig Jennings, and he was so fresh from the academy that the shine still hadn’t worn off his badge—or his face. He was surveying the desert floor through a pair of night vision goggles, a bundle of nervous energy. At thirty, Rivers felt like the old man of the group and was not as prone to get excited with every tip they were given. Too often, leads were nothing more than dead ends or even purposeful misinformation. The drug and weapon dealers on the other side of the border were many things, but the successful ones were far from stupid.

Rivers scanned the empty desert once more, and then shook his head. “I think we’ve been out here for over an hour and haven’t seen shit. Even if it was going to happen, they probably called it off on account of the moon.”

“Pack up?” Craig asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, let’s pack it in for the night. This was overtime duty for all of us anyway. If we get our asses back to the station, we might actually get a few hours of sleep before the next shift. It might be nice to see my little girl, if she can remember what her dad looks like.”

Rivers smiled at Jennings’s crestfallen expression, but he really was ready to go home and see his family, and he knew the rest of his team was too. His squad was the best trained in the area and people vied for a position on it, but with the training came the hours, and with each passing day the hours felt longer. Field work was really best left to men without families—or social lives. Probably should include it in the official job description, he thought morosely as Jennings jumped down from the Ford Expedition’s running boards.

Rivers lifted his binoculars for one last look. Just as he was ready to end the operation, he saw a faint gleam of light at the edge of a distant sand hill, only to watch it disappear. A flicker and it was gone.

“Hold on...” he said, looking again. Nothing. “Give me your night vision, Jennings.”

Jennings handed over the goggles. Rivers didn’t bother slipping the straps over his head, just held them up to his eyes and adjusted the distance. Other than a few small heat signatures from random desert creatures, the landscape still looked quiet. He knew that in these situations, patience was a field agent’s best friend, so he focused in on the hill where the light had briefly flickered and waited.

Beside him, Jennings started to speak, but Rivers shushed him and continued to watch. Finally, along the base of the mound, people began to appear, followed by a large truck. How the hell they’d gotten it into the hill was a mystery for later. Right now, the primary goal needed to be an arrest. “Hold on, guys,” Rivers said after keying his mike. “We’ve got company.”

Over several minutes, five trucks lined up, and more were emerging. The tunnel must have been huge and taken months to build. Headlights were now clearly visible. “Everyone stand by,” Rivers added, continuing to watch the developing scene. This was a big group, sure, but they were brazen as hell.

“What’s that?” Jennings asked, as the sound of heavy engines filled the air.

From a space somewhere between the squad’s position and where the illegals were gathering, two massive spotlights burst to life. Rivers yanked the goggles away from his eyes but not before he was half-blinded. He blinked rapidly to clear his vision and almost panicked as two modified assault vehicles—ultralight and modeled after rock-crawling dune buggies—came tearing toward them. Rivers caught a quick glimpse of mounted guns a second or two before they opened fire.

The unforgettable sound of two .50 caliber machine guns cut through the night. “Get down!” Rivers yelled, jumping free from the Expedition as bullets pierced the armored vehicle and strafed the ground.

His men ran for cover as Rivers rolled, got to his feet and spun back to jump behind the wheel of the truck. He turned the motor over and threw the truck into gear. After serving four years in the Army Special Forces and nearly eight years in the field as a Border Patrol agent, he knew the illegals’ expectation would be that they’d run like hell. He punched the accelerator and drove straight at the nearest buggy, even as rounds from the machine gun chewed holes in his hood. He yanked his Glock 17 free from the holster and began blasting through the window as he careened sideways.

Rivers’s charge forced the buggy to turn, but that didn’t stop the other one from taking its own shots at him. Rivers spun the wheel, and the Expedition’s tires clawed for traction. He nearly rolled the truck before it slammed back onto the rocky ground. Jennings had somehow made it into the vehicle, but all he could do was hold on. His face was white as a sheet.

“Either get your ass down, or do something,” Rivers snarled, wishing that spots on his team could be limited to men with at least a few years of field experience.

The new recruit grabbed the dash and ducked onto the floor as the second dune buggy closed in on them. Rivers dropped the transmission into reverse and slammed on the gas. The assault vehicle tried to adjust but hit a rock outcropping and flipped over twice before landing on its wheels and coming after them again. Hitting the brakes, Rivers jammed the transmission back into drive, then floored it, ramming the buggy at full speed. Men screamed as the two vehicles crunched together with the sound of tearing metal. One man flew forward and smashed into his windshield, leaving a smear of blood and brains on the bulletproof glass before sliding off the hood. With that buggy finally finished off, Rivers backed up and turned around, heading for where his other men were holed up.

He could see two agents on the ground by their vehicles. A jeep had joined the other dune buggy and had the remaining agents pinned down. Rivers swerved to hit a berm, which launched the Expedition into the fray and gave the agents cover. Gunfire from the automatic weapons on the dune buggy and the jeep knocked out two of the Expedition’s tires, dropping the hulking three tons of steel into the desert sand and throwing him into the windshield.

A sharp spike of pain lanced through his skull as his nose broke and the skin of his forehead split on impact. He leaned back, wiping the blood out of his eyes with a pained grunt.

“Are we going to die?” Jennings asked from the floor.

“If we just sit here, we will,” he replied. “It’s move or die time.”

Rivers reached into the backseat, the armor on the modified truck giving them at least a couple of moments before they’d be completely overwhelmed, and opened the lid for more weapons. He pulled out three grenades, giving one to Jennings, who was trying to pull himself together. Rivers tucked the other two grenades in his belt, then grabbed an FN SCAR assault rifle and two extra clips.

He’d been given the weapon to field test it and he sure hoped it proved to be reliable. Rivers popped two smoke grenades and chucked them out the window for cover, then burst out of the vehicle’s passenger side with Jennings close on his heels. They worked their way along the side of the Expedition, joining the two agents that had been pinned down behind a cluster of boulders.

Rivers heard Jennings yelp and turned back, his Glock 17 in his hand. Jennings looked terrified as his captor wrenched his head backward.

“Drop it,” the man said.

“I don’t think so,” Rivers replied.

The shot from the Glock was smooth and the look of surprise was etched on the captor’s face for a small moment before the bullet in his skull killed the lights. Rivers barely broke stride as he grabbed Jennings and pulled him in his wake.

It looked like the illegals were assessing the situation, so Rivers took advantage of the delay and lobbed one grenade into the dune buggy and the second into the jeep. The explosions lit up the night—and the two vehicles—ensuring that, at least for the moment, everyone was on foot. The thugs who had been pressing closer ran for cover.

“Rivers,” one of the other agents said after the echoes faded away. “I called for support before it all went to hell, but I don’t know how long it will take to get here.”

As if on cue, they heard a helicopter making its way toward them. Rivers popped a flare from his vest, the trailing orange smoke showing the agents’ location. The gunship moved in for a strafing run, giving the agents time to fall back to one of the other vehicles. They piled inside as the chopper moved in sweeping patterns, keeping them safe. The rest of their assailants moved back into the desert, disappearing almost as quickly as they’d appeared.

The chopper landed and Rivers moved back in for a closer look. The paperwork on this would be tremendous, and he was still very uncertain how the hell they ended up in this mess in the first place. Where had the illegals all come from, and how had they gotten their hands on those kinds of weapons and vehicles?

He walked over to one of the wrecked dune buggies. There would be no questioning the mangled bodies that littered the area. He ran his flashlight beam across the wreckage, then paused as he came upon the .50 caliber machine gun. It was a Browning all right and carried U.S. Army serial numbers and badging. He ran his hands along the raised lettering.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. “I don’t believe it.”

“What is it?” Jennings asked.

Rivers ran his light across the letters again. He nodded at Jennings’s indrawn breath.

“Those are Army weapons,” Jennings said. “Now what do we do?”

“Now we get some help,” Rivers replied. “Because if this means what I think it does, we’re going to need it.”

Chapter 2

From the top of Holtanna Peak in Antarctica, Mack Bolan took a deep, cleansing breath. The landscape was pure, white snow, broken only by jagged shards of brown rock. Here, there were no human enemies to fight, no wars to win. The cold, the wind, the challenges of climbing, skiing and BASE jumping in this region were daunting, but for a man known as the Executioner, this kind of activity was his idea of rest and relaxation.

The tall pillar of Holtanna topped out at almost nine thousand feet. Standing alone in the middle of the Antarctic, the “hollow tooth” was an obstacle meant to be conquered. Bolan and his climbing companion, Gerard Casias, led the way, setting ropes for the other two climbers. Even with his winter gear, the cold penetrated deep into his bones. Each time he pushed in with the ice spikes on the soles of his boots, sharp pins of pain radiated through his frozen skin and up his leg. He wiggled his toes to increase the circulation before he looked for his next foothold. The chimneys within the rock were choked with snow, making the climb slow and arduous. Bolan paused to look out over the pristine white landscape. The sheer beauty of the environment pushed him onward. He placed the next piton to hold the permanent rope for the rest of the crew to climb behind him.

At two a.m. in Antarctica, the sun was high, but the temperature was not. The light beard Bolan had grown to help protect his face was frozen. The trek had taken them twenty-four hours of straight climbing.

Standing now on top of the bottom of the world, Bolan saw an incoming aircraft and pulled out his field goggles to identify it. A P3-K Orion, which meant that his time off was about to be cut short. Someone was using U.S. Naval resources to find him.

He took one last look at the beautiful surroundings, then zipped the last of the closures on his wingsuit. The material created the illusion of wings and a tail.

“Who will count it off?” Gerard called out.

“I will,” Bolan said.

He waited by the ledge, took two strides and launched himself into the abyss. The wind rushed past him, but the edges of his suit broke the speed and created a nice glide through the air. Bolan experimented with the directions of his arms and the angle of his body as he played on the breeze. Closing in on his mark, he deployed the parachute and glided safely to the ground. The others were right behind him. He unclipped the parachute, waved to the other climbers and sprinted off toward the plane as it taxied to a halt.

Gerard would see to it that the others got back to camp and would most likely stay for another few weeks, enjoying a life of adventure that didn’t involve the kinds of dangers the Executioner faced most every day of his life.

The cabin door opened on the aircraft and a ladder was tossed through the opening. Bolan stopped and looked up to see a grizzled E-7 staring down at him. “Colonel Stone?” the man shouted, trying to make himself heard over the props.

“That’s me,” Bolan yelled. “You must be my ride.”

“Yes, sir! We’ve got orders to get you back to the States as fast as possible.”

Bolan started climbing the ladder, and after a couple of minutes, he stepped on board. The chief petty officer gave him a quick once over. “You don’t look like a colonel,” he quipped.

“I’ve been off-duty,” Bolan replied. “Let’s get moving.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said, pulling in the ladder and slamming the cabin door shut.

Bolan moved to the cockpit and opened the door. Two officers—the pilot and the copilot—were inside. “Gentlemen,” he said.

“Colonel Stone,” the pilot said. “I’m Captain Sikes, and this is Lieutenant Commander Olsen. Glad we were able to find you so quickly. We’ve got orders.”

“I figured as much,” Bolan replied. “What’s our route back?”

“We’ll go via South America,” Sikes said. “We’ll take on a new crew there, and then get you home.”

“Sounds like a long, boring flight,” he said.

“That’s just how we like them, sir,” Olsen replied.

“Go ahead and make yourself comfortable in back,” Sikes added.

Bolan nodded and headed to the cabin, where he found the other man already seated in the front row. He stopped in the galley long enough to grab some hot coffee, then moved to the back of the cabin and took a seat. The props began to spin faster and the plane completed a long turn, then started down the rough landing strip before heading into the sky.

From his inside jacket pocket, Bolan pulled out his handheld and powered it up. It took a good minute for it to sync with the satellite system it used for communications. As soon as he had a good signal, he put his thumb on the screen and unlocked the device. He opened his contacts and hit a speed-dial number. It took several seconds for the call to connect but only one ring before Hal Brognola, the director of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm, to answer.

“Tell me you’re on the plane, Striker,” he said, skipping any formalities.

“I’m on the plane,” he assured him.

“We’ve got a situation and I need you in on it.”

Stony Man Farm was a clandestine organization whose action teams fought terrorism and crime all over the world. When the mission was such that official agencies couldn’t openly take it on, Stony Man stepped in, thus allowing the U.S. Government to disavow involvement. Bolan worked with the Farm at arm’s length, taking on missions when it was crucial or appropriate and bringing in new missions when he needed backup in terms of technology, weapons and sometimes manpower. For Brognola to have back-channeled him into a Navy plane using his Colonel Stone identity, the situation must be pretty dire.

“What’s the problem, Hal?” he asked.

“Well, the good news is that you’re going somewhere warmer.”

“Anywhere is warmer than here,” Bolan said.

“True enough,” he admitted. “The situation is this—one of our field assets in Phoenix got in touch with us two days ago. She was contacted by a U.S. Border Patrol agent named Colton Rivers.”

“Hmm...there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,” Bolan said. “He’s one of their field ops guys on the border. We crossed paths a while back when I dealt with that rash of agent kidnappings.”

“Same guy,” Brognola said. “He didn’t know how to find you, so he asked around and eventually connected with me.”

“So, what’s going on that Rivers thinks he needs help from people like us?”

“The smuggling situation down there has taken a turn for the surreal. He was out with a team in the desert near Douglas and they were ambushed by illegals from the other side.”

“That’s probably not all that unusual,” Bolan replied. “It’s a war zone, Hal. A quiet one, but still war.”

“If that were all, I wouldn’t be talking to you. There’s more. The weapons the illegals were using were U.S. Army issue. Not surplus, either. Someone is selling them military weapons, and if it’s hot down there now, a cartel armed with God-knows-what could turn that quiet war-zone into a full-scale disaster area.”