Serpent's Lair

The Executioner had only just come out of his roll, when he was looking at the front grille of a car bearing down on him. He had a gun with a dud round under the striker, was trying to recover his balance and heard the sound of brakes being applied behind him. Angry shouts from Rhode Hogan filled his ears.

The car screeched to a halt, the driver acting on instinct, gravel spitting from under the wheels. That was Mack Bolan’s only chance, a break in the onward advance that would have crushed him. He kicked with both legs, launching himself hard out of the path of the vehicle.

More tires screeched, and there was the sound of bumpers hammering each other. Bolan didn’t see the collision. He was rolling once more, this time through thick foliage at the roadside. Pliant green stalks snapped at his bare forearms and face as momentum carried him through. His shoulder felt as if it were on fire. Stinging pain and wet stickiness told him that his flesh had opened, and the enemy hadn’t even fired a shot.

He tucked onto one side and used both hands on the Glock in his fist.

At least the first round in each of the magazines had healthy looking primers. He racked the slide and ejected the dead, dud round, the next shot coming up and ready to go with one pull of the six-pound trigger. There were no safety catches or levers to be flicked into position to get the gun up and running.

The firearm was perfect for Matt Cooper, FBI agent, the smoke screen to get Mack Bolan within striking range of Yakuza daimyo Botan Okudaira.

Bolan considered his situation. This wasn’t about a hostage negotiation. This wasn’t about arresting someone. This was about the Executioner on the hunt for a criminal mastermind and stopping him before his organization grew strong enough to cause a turf war between Chinese and Japanese criminals—a turf war that would leave innocents dead in the cross fire and governments sweating the fallout.

The air was chilly without his jacket or a long-sleeved shirt, but it was starting to heat up as bursts of exploratory fire pumped out of the back of Hogan’s van, silenced automatic fire slicing into the brush. Bolan stayed low and crabwalked toward the tree line, not afraid of getting the Glock covered in mud or dirt. The plastic-framed pistol was nearly as reliable as his Beretta in resisting mud and the elements.

Bolan moved swiftly and was far enough away that all he could make out was Hogan shouting orders, the words suppressed by distance and gunfire.

The odds didn’t look good, not that Bolan was going to poke his head above the top of the foliage to expose himself. He just kept moving, walking on all fours, crouching low. His foot hit some tangled, muddy weeds and slipped. He fell to his knees and one elbow. He suppressed a grunt, but the foliage around him shook.

Bolan didn’t wait for the enemy to spot and react to the sudden movement. With all his strength and speed, he launched from the foliage into the woods, ducking behind a tree just as a blast of high-velocity bullets smashed into the trunk. The Executioner swung around and contemplated returning fire, but instead held it.

Thirty-nine shots wasn’t going to cut it, no matter how good a marksman he was. Not against automatic weapons with twice to three times the range of his pistol, and not against weapons in the hands of professionals who knew how to make use of every ounce of the superior shootability of a long-barreled rifle, or even a submachine gun. Bolan decided firing off even a short, discouraging burst would only attract attention and bring down the hammer of concentrated fury on him.

Instead, Bolan stayed behind the cover of a tree trunk about two feet in diameter. He was fifteen feet in from the tree line, watching for anyone starting for the woods. He watched as four men, wearing body armor and carrying big, black weapons, moved away from Hogan’s convoy.

The vehicles were starting up, disappearing up the road to continue to their rendezvous with the Yakuza.

Between Bolan and the rendezvous were four heavily armed killers, better equipped and better protected than he was, and several miles of road. He looked over his hurt shoulder and saw his shirt was torn. Gravel had scraped a layer of dermis away, leaving him raw and bloodied, but the wound was superficial. His shirt flapped open at the back, and a cold wind washed over him. The weather was in the fifties, and while he knew that wouldn’t be too bad for the short term, spending a whole day exposed to the cool could make him lapse into hypothermia. It happened to hikers all the time, people underdressing for the weather, thinking a spring day or a cool fall day couldn’t possibly threaten their health.

Bolan gave the Glock’s grip a reassuring squeeze, and waited for the enemy gunmen to draw closer. He had cover, and he was scouting out their angles of approach.

No good, he thought. Even if he could tag one, maybe two of the mercs, the others would nail him in a cross fire. They were too well spread out, yet able to give even the farthest of their partners cover fire. If Bolan exposed himself to take down one, three more would spring into action and cut him apart.

The men stopped well before the tree line.

“Come on out, Cooper!” one of them called. “We don’t want to shoot you.”

Bolan checked his watch. Its surface was gouged and scratched, but the hands underneath were undisturbed. He could still make the rendezvous by cutting across country.

But first, that meant getting past the enemy.

REBECCA ANTHONY HATED her name. She’d chosen Viscious Honey as her Goth name. Her hair was the same dark golden color of honey, and nearly as slick and fluid looking. Her green eyes stared out of heavily shadowed eyelids framed with thick black.

Honey leaned against the window and sighed. She tried to remember the day before. There’d been a rave at the club, maybe just a little too much Ecstasy and then she’d been stuffed into the back of the car. A pillow case had been thrown over her head and she’d struggled, but not hard enough.

She hadn’t had a chance to shower, and she had deliberately let her hair go for a while, letting natural oils and sweat darken her otherwise light and fluffy hair. Copious amounts of gel and hair spray made it glossy and heavy, spiking out and curling down in wild arcs from the center of her head. She’d colored it with grape Kool-Aid to make streaks of purple.

Her father hated her look, and that’s just what she’d wanted. She didn’t want to be the daughter of a millionaire who got his money from the spilled blood of the helpless, a man who helped design guidance systems for the bombs responsible for depriving people of power and water and sanitation utilities in two Gulf wars.

Honey always said she would rather be dead than living off her father’s money.

She was horrified at the idea of being traded for some of that blood-spattered cash.

Honey trembled, shuddering as she realized that, because of her, the Yakuza would get hold of the kind of high-tech weaponry that would allow them to rain death on their enemies and slaughter hundreds at the touch of a button. All because she got careless and was yanked into the back of the wrong car by a group of muscle-bound Japanese thugs looking to make some extra money.

She glared at Machida.

“What was I worth to my father?” Honey asked.

“We’ll learn that soon,” Machida answered.

2

Back against the wall, outgunned and outnumbered was not a new situation for the Executioner. In fact, being outgunned and outnumbered with his back against a tree trunk wasn’t even out of the ordinary. But, Bolan thought, at least he couldn’t grow complacent. Not with a supersonic round smashing into the bark sending splinters of wood stinging into his biceps. He dived out of the way before a sweeping scythe of automatic weapons fire cut across the tree at chest level.

Twisting, he landed with the Glock 23’s muzzle aiming at the gunman who’d taken the shot at him. Bolan pulled the trigger and there was nothing but a click. The striker had either snicked home on an empty primer, or the firing pin was malfunctioning. Or both.

Four armed men and a malfunctioning pistol would be enough to make any man give up the ghost.

But Bolan wasn’t just any man.

He rolled out of the way as the machine gunner, spotting the movement on the ground, compensated. Bullets slammed into the earth where he had been only moments before. With a surge of speed, Bolan plunged himself deeper into the woods.

Bullet strikes kicked up leaves at his heels and the Executioner grimaced at the thought of having to run from a fight. He grabbed a tree trunk and swung himself around, cutting away at a hard right angle, leaping over a log and finding himself in a clot of bushes.

He could see the men in the woods following his trail. They hadn’t counted on him breaking the course so quickly. Still, each was watching the other, eyes sweeping the backs of their partners as they advanced. It was a slow leapfrog. They weren’t keeping to the same pace as their prey.

Professional soldiers, to a man, and the Executioner was unarmed except for his wits, a folding knife in his pocket and the steel slide of his Glock. Wrapping his fingers around the barrel, his thumb through the trigger guard, he had a good hunk of square, exposed steel with which to smash the heavy dome of a skull, provided he had enough stealth to sneak up on these men, and had enough strength and speed to take out one man while his partner was preoccupied with advancing. The folding Applegate-Fairbairn combat knife would be his backup, four inches of deadly double-bladed steel that might be able to punch through the heavy Kevlar vests the mercs wore.

Rising silently, the Executioner advanced through the woods, circling back. He closed in on the last man in line.

Bolan sidestepped, knowing that if he missed, he was going to raise a racket. The folding dagger opened soundlessly, but locked securely. Steel in each hand, he was going to make his move, and his legs coiled up tight.

It was only four long strides, two and a leap if he timed it right, to take down the tail gunner. He took a deep, slow, silent breath, let out half and then lunged.

Gun metal struck bone head-on with a crunch, and the enemy mercenary was stunned by the unexpected impact.

Bolan dropped the knife and held on to the man, keeping him from tumbling to the ground. He was hoping the others hadn’t noticed the commotion when he felt the first impacts of the 9 mm rounds strike the man that Bolan suddenly used as shield.

“He’s got Tom!” came the cry, followed by a second burst.

Bolan held the back of Tom’s armor. The fingers on his right hand ached from holding both the Glock and the collar of the protective vest, but his grip on the man’s belt was much firmer.

A third burst hit Tom, and the multiple shocks shook the body so much that the weakened and sliced web belt came apart. The mercenary fell dead from Bolan’s hands, but the Executioner still had his hands on whatever gear the gunman had on his belt.

Bullets tore through the air, and Bolan was in retreat again. He had a handgun and spare clips on the belt in his fist, and at least a mile to cross overland.

Sticking around to take out the three fully armed mercenaries would swallow too much time, allowing Hogan and the Yakuza to meet unmolested.

He couldn’t let the girl exchange hands.

Bolan didn’t know what would happen next, but he intended to get there before anything happened to the innocent life he was suddenly responsible for protecting.

There were no acceptable losses to the Executioner. He had only a few minutes to reach Rebecca Anthony and secure her freedom.

Bounding through the trees, the Executioner raced as fast as he could. He slowed enough to glance down at the gun he had in the holster.

He was carrying an old Walther P-38 K in his holster. With the five-inch barrel trimmed to three inches, yet still holding nine shots ready to fire with a pull of the trigger, it was an attractive weapon. Not as attractive as having fourteen rounds of bigger, fatter .40-caliber slugs, Bolan thought, but it wasn’t massive missiles and having dozens of rounds of firepower that made a gun worthwhile.

It was the ability of the gunmen to hit a target.

The Executioner had that ability. And with a couple spare magazines, he figured he might actually stand a chance. It was a small chance, made even smaller as gunfire chased him through the foliage as he crossed the hillside road, but Bolan wasn’t dead yet.

The Executioner charged on.

HOGAN HEARD THE CLICK of the radio and tilted it toward his mouth, his earpiece feeding him the frantic words.

“The target is climbing the hill as we speak. He’s cutting across country,” Frye stated on the other end.

“Damn,” Hogan murmured. “He’s got a useless Glock—”

“No. He got Tom.”

“Christ, he’s got an HK?” Hogan asked.

“No. We drove him off with automatic weapons fire, but he did manage to cut off Tom’s web belt. He got that creaky old little Walther Tom loved so much,” Frye explained.

Hogan took a deep breath, rolled his eyes and spoke into the radio. “Continue after Cooper. Don’t let him get away. I don’t need him popping up on my six when we burn the Yakuza and get the girl.”

“We’re in hot pursuit, sir. Unless this guy is Tarzan, there’s no way he can outrace us,” Frye replied.

“So why is he still alive and heading back this way when you were between him and the road?”

There was silence on the other end.

“Just as I thought,” Hogan said. “I’ll make sure our people are ready for him to come over the mountaintop. If you do catch him, consider your cut raised.”

“Thank you, sir,” Frye said.

Hogan let the radio mouthpiece rest back on his shoulder. He knew that there were more advanced designs, but the old radio was a thing of comfort, firm, solid and dependable. Just like the HK MP-5 and the Colt he had with him. Strong steel gave him a good feeling.

“Anything on their radio chatter?” Hogan asked his com man, Nickles.

“I’ve got nothing. There was a brief cell-phone call, but they cut it off. They’re tight on their discipline,” Nickles answered.

“Unless they don’t have anyone to call as backup,” Hogan said.

Nickles smirked. “That’s thinking too positively.”

“But it is an option,” Hogan said. “Either way, keep watching. If they’re not making calls out, then they probably have something arranged as backup.”

“I’m worried about this Cooper guy,” Nickles stated. “I was trying to keep track of his calls, but they were too encrypted. I couldn’t get a handle on who or where he was calling.”

“He’s not going to be a factor. Nobody has been following us,” Hogan explained. “Just keep your ears open for the Yakuza radio traffic.”

“You don’t think it’s going to be that much of a cakewalk, do you?” Nickles asked.

“I’m carrying a shitload of firepower. Everyone on this team is. The Yakuza do not fuck around when it comes to business, and the men we’re going against, they might not be military, but they are smart, tough and capable,” Hogan replied. “When we make our move to get the girl, it has to be hard and it has to be fast.”

Nickles smirked. “It’s never soft and easy.”

Hogan slapped the fore stock of his MP-5 into his meaty palm. “No, it never is.”

HONEY LOOKED AT THE tree line surrounding the clearing. Only an old, overgrown path showed any alternate way off the cliff-top clearing where the Yakuza vehicles were lined up. Men spread apart, ducking into clearings and ditches, carrying high-powered rifles and handguns with them.

It was an ambush, she thought, but then she realized that would be a stupid idea. The Yakuza wanted payment for her. If they opened fire on whatever negotiators her father sent, then there was a chance that they’d damage the money or the plans. She squirmed in her seat, keeping her eyes on the path that cut up the side of the mountain.

There was a chance, she thought. She wouldn’t have to go back to her father, and she could get away from these Yakuza thugs, if only she could create some kind of distraction. Her heart hammered under her breastbone, the uneasy tingle of nausea and anticipation filling her mouth with a coppery taste. She could run—

And what? Have not one but two small armies hunting her through the woods?

Anything was better than being Daddy’s little hostage, she thought.

If it came to a choice between living with a murderer or dying with a bullet in her back, she’d take her chances with the slug through her spine.

Her hand touched the door release for a moment, then she looked at Machida.

“They’re coming to take you home,” Machida told her. “If you try to run, people will get hurt. You’ll be one of them.”

“Mercenaries and criminals. What’s my father paying to have me freed?”

Machida shook his head. “That is not my place to say.”

“I can’t live with that. Because of me, some psychopath is going to get his hands on the equipment necessary to exterminate a few hundred people with the push of a button.”

“We do what we have to do,” Machida said. “I am bound by duty to my family to hand you over to your father’s negotiators.”

“No matter who suffers?” Honey asked.

Machida didn’t answer, his face becoming a hard mask. She knew she’d pissed him off, and regretted it. Somewhere, deep inside, she could sense there was something different about him.

“Then, child, if you truly believe in doing your duty, I shall honor you. I will do what I have to do, and I will try to stop you, but I do not blame you for doing what you feel is the honorable thing.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Honey said.

The cell phone in Machida’s hand rang once. He checked the readout on the caller identification. He managed a smile. “I shall be outside of the vehicle. Your father’s men have just passed one of the checkpoints we’ve set up.”

“Oh great. The cavalry is here,” Honey answered. Her upper teeth clicked against the rings piercing her lower lip.

“I wish you well in your endeavor, Rebecca Anthony.”

“Call me Viscious Honey,” she answered.

Machida looked at her. “I wish you well, Viscious Honey.”

She managed a smile as the Yakuza man left the vehicle.

NICKLES LOOKED OVER at Hogan. “There was a quick spurt of cell-phone activity. Only one ring, though.”

“They’re good. We must have passed a scout. For people without military-level communications equipment, they’re very efficient,” Hogan answered. “Any word on Cooper?”

“No sign of him since he crossed the road and went into the woods over the top of the hill.”

“How long ago was that?” Hogan asked.

“Three minutes,” Nickles replied.

Hogan looked at the map strapped to his forearm and judged overland travel versus the speed and distance they had traveled by road in the convoy.

“There could be a small problem,” Hogan said. “This guy, Cooper, if he’s a fast runner, he might actually show up on site when we’re making the trade.”

“One more body to add to the pile,” Nickles pointed out. “He’s one guy with an 8-shot pistol.”

“Nine shots. Thomas always kept that thing cruiser-loaded with an extra shot in the chamber.”

“Nine bullets against us?” Nickles asked. “Body armor and automatic weapons and fifteen-to-one odds.”

“Not counting the Yakuza.”

“Who we’ll be taking care of, too.”

Hogan listened to his com man’s words and didn’t quite believe them. There was something about the lone FBI agent. Something that wasn’t right. He smelled phony as a Fed, but he actually seemed like someone Hogan would have picked up for his mercenary unit. The way he checked and cleared the Glock without even a second’s sloppiness showed him as a professional weapon handler. The way he handled himself against a half-dozen men stuffed into the back of a van, and evading four armed killers in the woods was further proof that Cooper was more commando than federal cop.

Hogan knew having him pop into the scene with his gun blazing would only serve to make a tough situation even worse.

The convoy pulled slowly into the clearing.

BOLAN HAD CLEARED the top of the mountain and was three-quarters of the way to the meeting site when he slowed and evaluated his gear. The Walther P-38 K was accompanied by four magazines and a cylindrical tube. Having a sound suppressor for the little handgun would give him an element of surprise, and if he couldn’t have audacity and superior firepower, he’d take stealth and deception on his side.

He quickly screwed the attachment into place and stalked slowly through the increasingly thick foliage. By the time he was in sight of the clearing, he saw Hogan’s lead car arriving.

Bolan also spotted a Yakuza gunman hunkered down behind a tree trunk with a bolt-action hunting rifle. The Executioner knew it wasn’t as clear-cut as a trap. Not with the kind of deal that Anthony wanted to make with the mobsters.

The sniper seemed oblivious to anything around him. Bolan knew from experience that good snipers were stealthy and could sneak in close to the enemy, but they needed a spotter, not only to confirm kills and record other intelligence, but to perform escort duty for the shooter.

Bolan was never ashamed to have someone watching his back as a sniper. But it seemed that the Yakuza gunman hadn’t been given such backup.

The Executioner stayed his hand. He scanned the shrubbery, looking for other hidden forms. He stopped counting when he reached five men, all armed with hunting rifles or long-barreled revolvers with hunting scopes. He couldn’t see more than the quintet present, but that was enough for him to realize that the mobsters were expecting the mercenaries to cause some trouble. The high-powered weaponry postioned at the tree line was enough to cut through even the best of body armor at that relatively short range. Firing from ambush, these five, and any others hidden at angles around the clearing, could make Hogan’s mercenaries honest.

The convoy rolled to a stop as Bolan looked at the main Yakuza vehicle, a white stretch limousine parked near a small, overgrown path leading back up the mountain.

The door to the limousine opened slightly, and Bolan caught sight of a young woman’s face, pale with lack of sunlight, the dark rings around her eyes highlighted by days’ old makeup. Light reflected off the two metal hoops that pierced her lip. It was Rebecca Anthony, or Viscious Honey as she apparently liked to be known.

Bolan looked at the gunmen with their backs to him. He could see that the girl was looking for a distraction, and probably didn’t have a clue about the armed men at the tree line who could cut her down if she tried to make a run for it. He lined up the sights of the Walther, knowing that even with a suppressor, the 9 mm bullet’s flight through the trees would bounce enough supersonic echoes to make it known that he was on the scene.

He’d be giving up his advantage.

But he’d be protecting a young life.

Despite the mission to destroy the Yakuza boss, he still had a duty to protect the helpless.

MACHIDA OPENED HIS JACKET and drew a Beretta from his shoulder holster, taking a deep breath as Hogan and his men got out of the van. They approached slowly and were not subtle about their body armor and automatic weaponry. He counted them and was pleased to see that there were fifteen. Perhaps they wouldn’t be foolish enough to initiate violence knowing they were outnumbered.

“Where’s the girl?” Hogan called out.

“She’s in the limousine. I have sharpshooters in hiding too,” Machida replied quickly.

Hogan paused in his journey to meet Machida halfway. “Sharpshooters? What for?”

“To make certain you behave.”

Hogan smirked.

“You come to take the girl. You will have the girl,” Machida explained. “However, we will have what we need, and we will go home happy as well.”