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Code Of Honor
Don Pendleton


Pink. Orange.White. Indigo. In the ruthless and unforgiving world of mercenaries, these are the code names of an elite group of assassins, known collectively as the Black Cross. They leave behind no DNA, no evidence at all–and until they were recruited by the shadowy group, they were the best and deadliest operatives working for the U.S. government.When someone begins targeting retired American servicemen–CIA, navy and marines–Stony Man decides to send Black Cross a new recruit: Mack Bolan. Bolan must infiltrate the cell of skilled assassins, taking the entire organization apart, body by body. And he'll do it the only way he knows how… Executioner style.









Only one of them was walking away from this confrontation alive


The pain from the wound in his arm was starting to burn fiercely, but the Executioner had suffered far worse in his time. He needed to finish Ms. Orange off.

Deciding it might be worth the risk, Bolan reached under his jacket for the SIG-Sauer.

As he did so, another lightning-fast crescent kick caught him on the side of his head. Ms. Orange followed it with a punch to the face that sent him stumbling backward.

But Bolan still had his hand on the SIG-Sauer. Stumbling back even farther than the punch had sent him, he got just enough distance so he could whip out the handgun and squeeze the trigger.

One bullet ripped through Ms. Orange’s turtleneck and splintered her rib cage. Another followed it through the shattered bone and into her heart. As her eyes widened in shock, Ms. Orange collapsed to the ground.

She was good but the Executioner was better.





Code of Honor


The Executioner







Don Pendleton







www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


If Honour calls, where’er She points the way, The Sons of Honour follow, and obey.

—Charles Churchill

1731–1764

The Farewell

When men of honor are disrespected, it is my duty to avenge that wrong—whatever it takes. It is my code.

—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

Chapter 20




Prologue


Albert Bethke missed the cold war.

It was easier in those days. You had the United States, you had the Soviet Union, and you knew who the good guys were and who the bad guys were.

After the Berlin Wall came down, it all went to hell, as far as Bethke was concerned. Suddenly, they were working with the Soviets—or rather, the Russians, since there weren’t Soviets anymore. Bethke supposed that was how the old OSS boys felt after World War II, when they brought over Nazi scientists to help with the cold war. But this particular new world order just didn’t sit well with Bethke.

Still, he hung on with his job at the National Security Agency after twenty years in the FBI, and then had helped put the Department of Homeland Security together. But once DHS was up and running, he put in his retirement papers. He’d had enough.

Not that retirement was what he’d been expecting. At first, he did all the things he promised himself he’d get around to some day. He traveled all over the country, visiting the landmarks that he’d seen pictures and films of but never been to: the Grand Canyon, Mount Rushmore, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, the Southernmost Point of the U.S., and much more.

That took up three years, and then he was bored. Bethke had been both an administrator and a field agent, and he found he missed the excitement. Not enough to actually go back to work—though he had been told repeatedly by the directors at DHS that they’d take him back in a heartbeat—but enough to want to find more exciting things to occupy his time than play tourist.

So he found himself in New Paltz, New York, hiking in the Mohonk woodlands. Eventually, he planned to work his way up to proper mountain climbing, but hiking would do for now, help him rebuild his stamina. It would also get rid of the paunch that was developing. That paunch had put in appearances before, and it was always a signal to Bethke to get back into fieldwork.

Then, after a year or two of getting shot at, he’d go back behind a desk.

But that was all behind him.

It was the perfect day for a hike. It was a weekday, and it was drizzling, which meant that there was almost nobody else on the hiking trails. The few people he did see were doing the easier trails—Bethke went through the trees and up and down rocks.

The rain made it a bit more challenging, which made it that much more fun.

Bethke was dressed in brown hiking boots, white tube socks, a New York Mets baseball cap—which kept his thinning brown hair dry—cargo shorts and a plain white T-shirt, with a beige molle vest over it. Both the vest and shorts had plenty of pouches and big pockets, saving Bethke from having to bring a backpack. He carried bottles of water, power bars, his cell phone and .38 caliber bullets.

Those last were for the Smith & Wesson .38 Special in the shoulder holster that occasionally bit into his armpit as he climbed rocks or maneuvered around trees. The kids in both NSA and DHS had made fun of his “old-time” weapon. To Bethke, though, there was no point in a useless upgrade. Sure, he could go with a SIG-Sauer or a Glock or whatever the hell else they were using now, but as far as Bethke was concerned, a bullet was a bullet, and if you placed it right, it would do what you wanted it to do, regardless of what you shot it from.

In thirty years on the job, he’d never once missed what he was aiming at.

The kids would still razz him, of course, so Bethke would invite them down to the shooting range. Whoever grouped his or her shots closest would not have to pay for beer at the bar after they were off the clock. He’d even be generous and let them shoot first. They might do a decent job of grouping their shots in the chest or the head. Then Bethke would load his .38 Special and throw all six shots into the target in a perfect circle less than an inch in diameter.

Bethke never once paid for his own drink on those occasions.

He squeezed himself into a small passageway between two rocks, hoping there weren’t any bears. He really didn’t want to be in a position to have to shoot an innocent animal.

Once he made it through to the other side, he saw that a wooden ladder had been provided to get to the top of the rock. That was the end of this part of the hike, bringing him to a plateau that provided a great view of the area.

At the top was a no-longer-functional lighthouse, a few picnic tables, a public bathroom in a small stone structure, a very large rock that was sitting in the middle of the grass and mud and a spectacular view of Lake Mohonk. The mist from the clouds and rain covered the mountain like a blanket.

Best of all, Bethke didn’t have to share it with anyone except for the young couple walking toward the lighthouse. He wished he’d had the foresight to bring a camera. His cell phone had one, but the quality was crap.

For a few seconds, he just stood and took in the view. Something was bothering him, though—he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Then he very slowly turned his head so he was once again facing the couple, making it look as if he was simply gazing over the misty vista ahead of him.

The man was tall and skinny with short curly brown hair and plastic-rimmed glasses. He wore a loose-fitting rain slicker, denim shorts and hiking boots. His girlfriend or wife or whatever was very short and curvy, with wavy brown hair tied back into a ponytail, and was wearing a tight T-shirt that barely contained her large breasts. The shirt was untucked, hanging over a pair of what appeared to be elastic waistband sweat pants. She also wore hiking boots that seemed too big for her feet.

It could’ve been nothing. The man’s slicker and woman’s boots could simply have been too big. That sort of thing happened.

But the former could also be used to hide a holster and the latter to hide a knife sheath.

Then the man leaned in to whisper something in the woman’s ear. She giggled, and he was smiling as he spoke, but when he leaned over, Bethke saw the outline of a bulge pressing against the slicker.

Bethke immediately dived to the ground and unholstered his .38. If he was overreacting, he’d apologize to the couple, but better safe than sorry. He’d made his share of enemies over the years, after all, and he couldn’t risk that one of them might be here.

Even as he fell to the wet grass and mud, the man pulled out a 9 mm OD Green Glock 19, a compact model designed for carrying concealed.

It all happened fast enough that the man hadn’t consciously registered that Bethke had dived to the ground, so his first shot went over his target’s head.

Bethke needed a second to catch his breath—he’d just been doing a heavy hike, and his fatigued muscles and overtaxed lungs were reminding him just how long it had been since he’d done any kind of field work—and then he loosed a shot at the man.

As always, Bethke hit what he was aiming at: the man’s center mass. The .38-caliber bullet sliced through the man’s jacket and shirt like a hot knife through butter, cutting into his chest, splintering his ribs, and ripping into his heart.

The man squeezed off one more shot before he expired. A 9 mm round flew through the air and slammed into Bethke’s left shoulder. He winced briefly against the pain of the bullet, which was now lodged in his rotator cuff—it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot.

The woman had lifted her shirt, exposing a Charter Police Undercover .38 that was tucked into the waistband of her sweats, drew the weapon and fired off two shots that flew over Bethke’s head.

That was just cover fire. She was diving behind her “husband’s” corpse, using the body as a shield. That told him a lot about the level of ruthlessness Bethke was dealing with.

Knowing it was going to hurt like hell, Bethke rolled on the ground to take cover behind the rock. The woman’s .38 rounds hit the mud where he’d been with a squelch, and others hit his Mets cap, which had fallen off while he rolled. More shots followed him until he was behind the protection of the rock.

Bethke took a moment to compose himself, even as the woman’s last two rounds ricocheted off the rock.

“Hey!”

The voice came from behind Bethke. Whirling, with his back now to the rock, he saw an overweight man wearing a sweatshirt with the words Lake Mohonk emblazoned on the chest and white shorts running clumsily toward the tableau. He wore a backpack, and his ample belly was bouncing in rhythm with his strides.

“Hey, lady, what the hell’re you doin’?”

His FBI instincts taking over, Bethke said, “Sir, get down!”

“That lady’s nuts!” the fat man said, still running toward Bethke.

Then Bethke’s spook instincts kicked in. The woman was an assassin who used her partner’s body as a shield—yet this man was in her sights and she didn’t shoot.

Which meant the fat man was part of the team. Bethke raised the S&W with his right hand and threw a shot. This was another reason why Bethke preferred his old-fashioned revolver: he could fire it with one hand, especially if he was leaning against a rock that could absorb the recoil.

The shot wasn’t quite as perfect—it only hit the fat man in the shoulder, about an inch above his heart. It stopped him running, but even as blood stained his gray sweatshirt, he held up his left hand, which was holding a Hibben UC-458 throwing knife, which flew from his hand and lodged in Bethke’s right thigh, cutting through skin and muscle and penetrating the femoral artery.

Feeling the blood start to pour out of his leg, Bethke squeezed off a second shot at the fat man. This one nailed him right between the eyes, splintering his skull and spattering blood all over the grass.

The fat man fell backward to the ground with a wet impact that kicked up quite a bit of mud. Bethke forced his left hand to clamp down on his right leg in what was probably a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding. The bullet wound in his shoulder wouldn’t let him raise his left arm, but as long as he was seated on the ground, it was easy enough to try to hold the wound together. He also kept the knife in, since that was actually doing more than his hand was to keep the femoral artery from leaking out all over Mohonk Mountain.

It also meant he couldn’t really move from this spot. The woman had had enough time while Bethke was dealing with the fat man to do any number of things, including possibly reload her .38.

Then the woman appeared before him. The muzzle of her erstwhile partner’s Glock was staring Bethke right in the face. This close, Bethke could see the way she had modified her boots in order to hold knife sheaths. But she wouldn’t even need those knives. Bethke toyed with the notion of raising his S&W, but she’d blow his head off before he could even start moving his arm.

Since he was pretty obviously dead anyhow, he tried to at least find out one thing. “Why?”

The woman shrugged, her ponytail bouncing. Bethke realized that he wouldn’t get an answer. She and her two dead partners were probably hired assassins who were given a target. Such people were almost never told the why, only the who. If they were caught, they couldn’t give any specifics to law enforcement.

Not that that was likely to be an issue for Bethke. He’d really hoped to climb Mount Kilimanjaro some day.




1


Mack Bolan peered through the Pentax Lightseeker XL scope on his ArmaLite AR-50 .50 BMG rifle. The scope was equipped with a Twilight Plex reticle that was designed for fast target acquisition and low light. It was currently in night-vision mode, not to adjust for darkness—since it was midafternoon—but to detect heat signatures on the other side of the steel plating of the warehouse.

To the general public, the warehouse in this suburb of Detroit, Michigan, was used for meat storage by the Hash & Cox Meat Packing Company. The inside was kept at thirty-eight degrees, so the presence of a ninety-eight-degree human being would stand out like a beacon in the scope.

At the moment, the warehouse was empty of everything other than the meat and assorted tools and storage units.

The Executioner knew that would change soon.

The warehouse wasn’t exactly a front—Hash & Cox was a legitimate business that served as a middleman between suppliers and retailers—but it was used to mask a much less legitimate business. The warehouse was used for drug merchants who supplied cocaine and heroin for many of the dealers working in Detroit. All attempts by the Detroit Police Department to bring the business down had been stymied by Hash & Cox’s CEO, Karl Hash—the brother-in-law of the DPD police chief. Attempts to bring in the DEA or the FBI were equally stymied by the influence of a state senator, who had received numerous campaign contributions from Hash & Cox and its satellite companies. Hash & Cox’s COO, Charles McPherson, was also the nephew of a Michigan congressman who was on the committee that controlled the DEA’s funding.

All this made Hash & Cox off-limits to legitimate law enforcement.

That was where the Executioner came in.

Bolan would bring the company down because nobody else could. He’d learned that McPherson and Hash were meeting at the warehouse to make sure that the place was cleaned out of all narcotics in preparation for an FDA inspection the following day. When Bolan had talked to a friend of a friend in the FDA to get the inspection to happen, he’d been hoping for this result. Hash and McPherson had too much riding on this warehouse to risk trusting underlings. They’d want to check the place themselves, make sure it would pass inspection.

He planned to take out the pair of them as soon as they showed up by taking up position on the roof of another warehouse on the same backstreet. With the pair of them dead, the path would be cleared to legitimately bring down the drug operation.

A limousine pulled up to the warehouse gate. The driver hopped out and fumbled with a set of keys before inserting one into the padlock that secured the chain holding the gate shut. The padlock snapped open, and the driver pulled the chain out and tossed it aside. The gate slowly creaked open on its own, leaving the way clear for the limo to continue inside, once the driver got back inside.

Once the limo pulled up to the side entrance, the driver again hopped out, opening the door to let the other occupants out: two white men in pinstriped suits who matched the pictures of Hash and McPherson in Bolan’s dossier. At first, the Executioner was concerned that the driver might go inside as well, but he got back into the car once he closed the back door behind the two men. The scope couldn’t differentiate people inside the warehouse, just heat signatures, and the warehouse had no windows.

He could have taken them down outside, but it was better to wait for them to be inside, so that the driver would remain in the dark for as long as possible. The driver himself aided in this by turning on the limousine’s sound system at a very loud volume.

The Executioner had been waiting on the roof for these two to show up for four hours. He could hold off another minute.

After they went inside, Bolan waited until he saw two heat signatures. First one entered his sights, and he squeezed off a round. The rifle had been in his hands so long, it was like an extension of his arms, and firing it barely required a conscious effort on Bolan’s part.

The .50-caliber bullet easily penetrated the thick metal of the wall and blew off the head of either Hash or McPherson. The formerly upright heat signature fell into a crumpled mess on the floor.

It took only a second for Bolan to adjust his aim slightly and take out the heat signature of the second person, who hadn’t yet registered what had happened to his colleague. The bullet whistled through the air and pulped the head of the target.

When the second body went down, Bolan continued his vigil, making sure the heat signatures didn’t move and the driver didn’t respond to the loud report of two rifle shots being fired. After a while, the signatures got cooler as their body temperatures went down, accelerated by the low temperatures inside the warehouse.

But Bolan still didn’t move.

The limo sound system had been going for four songs before the driver turned it off. Seconds later, he bounded out of the car, a cell phone at his ear and a concerned look on his face, and ran to the entrance. Bolan assumed that Hash and McPherson had only expected to be a minute or two inside, and that the delay had the driver worried.

As well it should have.

Only then did the Executioner remove the scope and head for the roof entrance.

After making his way down the stairs of the warehouse to the street, he placed the rifle and scope in the trunk of the Chevrolet Aveo he’d rented, got behind the wheel and drove toward Interstate 94. Using his secure sat phone, he dialed the number for Stony Man Farm, the base for America’s ultracovert counterterrorist organization.

Within seconds, he was put through to Hal Brognola.

“Both men have been taken care of,” Bolan said without preamble, and without specifics.

“Good work, Striker. Your ride’s waiting at the Selfridge Air National Guard Base to bring you back here. We’ve got a big one.”

Bolan’s original plan had been to drive south on I–94 to Detroit, where he’d hole up in a motel room for the night, but instead he headed to Selfridge.



A FALCON 10 PRIVATE JET belonging to Stony Man had been waiting for Bolan at Selfridge, and it took off shortly after his arrival. One of the airmen stationed at the base said he would take care of Bolan’s rental car. The Executioner knew that Brognola had contacts all over the military and in law enforcement, and it was no surprise that he’d gotten Selfridge to do him this favor without their knowing precisely what it was about—or who it was they were doing it for.

The Falcon 10 had only one occupant when Bolan arrived: Charlie Mott, a civilian pilot who sometimes flew for Stony Man. “Welcome aboard, Striker,” Mott said with a sloppy salute at Bolan’s approach.

“Since when does Brognola give you chauffeur duty?” Bolan asked, as he climbed the small set of steps leading to the aircraft’s interior.

As he pulled the steps up into the closed-door position behind Bolan, Mott said, “He wanted to make sure you got to the Farm in one piece. He said this one’s a biggie.”

“So he told me over the phone.”

Mott then went into the cockpit and started preparing the plane for takeoff.

The Executioner slept for most of the two-hour flight to Stony Man Farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The Falcon 10 could accommodate up to eight people in extremely comfortable seats, and Bolan had long ago learned to take his rest where he could get it.

Mott taking the Falcon 10 into its final descent was enough to awaken Bolan, and as soon as the plane touched down, he gathered his rifle case and satchel and waited for the aircraft to come to a stop.

Brognola was waiting for him on the runway of the Farm’s airfield. “Welcome back, Striker. Let’s head up to the farmhouse so you can get a shower and a change of clothes. I’ve got a full briefing ready to go as soon as you’re ready.”

“No need to wait. You obviously want to get going quickly on this.”

“Fine.” Brognola hadn’t expected Bolan to actually accept any delay in getting the briefing to his next mission, but he had made the offer in any case out of respect for the man.

He and Bolan walked the short distance to the farmhouse, rather than accepting a ride in the Jeep that was standing by. After walking up the front steps and keying in the proper access code, the two men made their way to the War Room. A solid wooden conference table, surrounded by ergonomic chairs, dominated the room. At one end was a state-of-the-art laptop with a twenty-inch monitor. A USB cable was plugged into the laptop at one end and into a huge plasma TV mounted on the far wall, showing what was on the computer’s monitor in high definition.

At the moment, that was the desktop, which had assorted icons of programs and folders with file names made of seemingly random alphanumeric characters. Bolan knew that these were codes. Brognola moved the cursor to one of those folders and double-tapped the laptop’s track pad.

The folder contained several Portable Network Graphics files, also given coded alphanumeric file names.

First, Brognola called up four of the images, which were all crime-scene photos of dead bodies, and arranged them on the screen so Bolan could see all four.

There was a man with thinning brown hair lying against a rock in a grassy area, a woman with short steel-gray hair lying dead in a city street with a bullet wound in her back, an overweight man with his head literally blown off in a parking lot and a bald man with multiple stab wounds in his chest.

“You’re looking at Albert Bethke, Michaela Grosso, Terrence Redmond and Richard Lang.”

Bolan started at the third name. “Redmond’s been retired from the NSA for, what, ten years?”

“Twelve. And that’s something he has in common with the other three. They’re all people with a history of covert ops, and they’re all retired. Bethke was one of the people who set up DHS after 9/11, and before that he was NSA and FBI. Grosso and Lang were both CIA. They were all killed over the course of the past week or so—assassinated by the Black Cross.”

“You’re sure?”

Brognola hesitated. “No. But the evidence points to it.”

“The lack of evidence, you mean.”

“Yes,” Brognola said reluctantly. “There’s virtually no evidence at any of the crime scenes. No hairs, no fibers, no fingerprints save those of the victims, no biological residue for DNA save those of the victims, no shell casings or bullets at the scene or in any of the bodies despite the presence of bullet wounds, and almost all the blood traces that aren’t compromised by liberal application of bleach are also the victims’.” Brognola called up several more files, which were also digital photos. “Any number of killings over the years have matched this total lack of evidence. The FBI has a file a mile long on these—I know, ’cause I’m the one who started it. Of course, some of those are your executions, but the ones that aren’t…”

“The rumors about the Black Cross go back to my Army days,” Bolan said. “An elite group of assassins made up of the best of the best.”

“I know. And I know that there’s nothing to support it.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, just because the theory fits the evidence—or lack of same—doesn’t mean it’s right. And we’ve got nothing solid, except for the fact that local police were completely stymied. They kicked it up to FBI, and they brought it to me.”

Bolan scratched his chin thoughtfully. “When you referred to the evidence, you said �virtually’ and �almost.’ What’s different about these crime scenes from all the other ones you think are Black Cross?”

Brognola actually smiled at that, pleased that Bolan noticed how carefully he’d chosen his words. “Not �these,’ just the one. Bethke was killed in the Mohonk woodlands in New York. Two distinct sets of blood evidence were bleached far away from Bethke’s body—but there were a few drops of blood that weren’t bleached, and didn’t belong to Bethke. DNA identifies it as belonging to a former sharpshooter in Baltimore City PD’s Quick Response Team named Bert Hanson. He retired after only nine years on the job and then fell off the grid.”

“You think Black Cross recruited him?” Bolan asked.

“Makes sense. If I was looking for assassins, the QRT would be on my list of possible recruiting sources. Hanson had been a model cop—several decorations, no bad notes in his jacket. And then, out of nowhere, he quits, no reason given, and he’s not been heard from since—until he bled on the ground at Mohonk.”

“So what does that get us?”

In response, Brognola double-tapped another graphics file, which called up the face of a walleyed man with a thick beard, a large nose and curly hair. “I did a little digging into Hanson’s departure from the BPD. This is somebody who met with him at BPD’s Western District headquarters shortly before he quit. They talked in an interrogation room. He signed in as a lawyer, so there’s no audio of their meeting, but the name he signed in with doesn’t match any lawyer in the Maryland State Bar Association. So I ran his face through the database and eventually got a hit.”

Double-tapping on yet another file brought up another picture of the same man, but with the beard shaved off and thick-lensed glasses over the walleyes. “The only name we have for him is Galloway, and he’s been seen with a wide variety of dodgy personalities. Terrorists, arms dealers, assassins, you name it. But nobody’s ever been able to pin anything on him, or even find out his first name.”

“You think he’s recruiting for the Black Cross?”

Nodding, Brognola said, “Yes. And he’s a regular attendee of the Valley Forge Gun Show. He doesn’t have a booth, he just attends as a citizen. That show runs three or four times a year, and one of them is this weekend.”

“Hence your rush?”

“Yes. You think the Black Cross would be interested in gaining a new member?”

Bolan took a sip of his coffee. “Only one way to find out.”

“Good. We’ve already created a new identity for you.”

Raising an eyebrow, the Executioner asked, “Why not simply use the Matt Cooper ID?”

“He fits the profile, but this op risks burning that ID completely, and it’s too useful.” Brognola minimized all the files so the desktop was revealed once again, and this time he double-tapped another folder.

Several files became visible in the window, and Brognola called up several of them. One had a recent picture of Bolan, with a caption that read Michael Burns. Another had a U.S. Marines dossier that revealed Burns was a rifleman who served in the first Gulf War, but was dishonorably discharged due to insubordination—specifically for killing a prisoner after being told to bring him in alive.

“I see Bear’s been busy,” Bolan said, referring to Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, Stony Man’s computer expert.

“I had a feeling you were going to say yes to this one, Striker.”

“I know how important the Black Cross is to you, Hal.”

Brognola waved him off. “I don’t care about that—I just want these people stopped.”

“Redmond and the others served their country with honor and deserved a quiet retirement. I will take down whoever killed them.”

Nodding, Brognola said, “Well, Michael Burns should be a good fit for them. He’s got the skills, and he was kicked out of the Marines for killing someone. He’s been working as a mercenary for a few years, but he’s had trouble finding work because he uses excessive force regardless of the circumstances.”

“Just what a group that deals only in excessive force would be looking for.”

“And Bear’s made sure that any background check will come up solid. Only one of his old COs in the Corps is still alive, and he’s a friend of mine, so he’ll vouch for �Burns.’”

Peering at the screen, Bolan said, “He’s from Alabama?”

“Yes. Tomorrow’s the last day of the gun show, so you can get a good night’s sleep, and you can head up to King of Prussia in the morning.”

The Executioner stood up, shook Brognola’s hand, then headed out of the meeting room to get that shower the head of Stony Man had offered.

While Bolan was still skeptical of the existence of the Black Cross, he also knew that, if they did exist, they needed to be shut down. For them to have been successful for so long spoke to an organization that was responsible for murder on a truly massive scale.

Bolan intended to make sure they would be stopped once and for all.




2


After a four-hour drive up I–81 and across I–76 in a specially modified Ford Escort owned by Stony Man, the Executioner arrived in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and the Valley Forge Convention Center for the last day of the Valley Forge Gun Show. The convention exhibit hall was filled with booths run by sports shops, gun stores, and dealers who sold weaponry and assorted accessories.

Before entering, Bolan was frisked and put through a metal detector. The gun show had very specific regulations: all firearms had to be checked and rendered inoperable and no loaded firearms were permitted inside the convention center during the open hours of the show. Rather than ever be forced to relinquish any of his weaponry, Bolan chose to do so voluntarily by simply leaving everything in the car. It was a strange feeling walking around without weapons on his person, but he took solace in the fact that he wasn’t alone in that.

After paying his nine-dollar admission fee, Bolan walked the floor, inspecting some of the firearms, knives and accessories. There was nothing here he wasn’t already intimately familiar with, especially since he often had access to weaponry that wasn’t yet ready for the open market. Still, he pretended to be interested as men in ballcaps enthusiastically waxed rhapsodic on the subject of their particular items and why they were better than those of the guy across the hall.

Bolan played along, asking the types of questions that a civilian might ask, and he noted at least three occasions where the booth jockey in question exaggerated the ability of the weapon he was trying to sell.

He found himself spending some time at one booth, where an old man with a thick white beard was selling an impressive collection of knives. “This,” the man said in a scratchy voice, “is what you really want, my friend.”

The old man slid the glass off a wooden case and tilted it upward. Reaching around, he grabbed a black-colored folding knife. The blade itself was also obsidian in color, and had a stylized logo etched into the flat of the blade.

“This here’s an Emerson Commander BTS,” the old man said as he held it handle out to Bolan. “Down in Atlanta, they voted this best overall knife of the year.”

Bolan knew of the honor bestowed by the International Blade Show, and also knew the answer to the question he posed as he took the knife from the dealer. “How’s it different from the CQCs?”

“Oh, the CQCs’re fine for your average use, but lookin’ at you, I’m thinkin’ you’re more the combat-knife type.”

“I thought the CQCs were combat knives.”

“They are—but if you want the best, you want the Commander. Lasts longer, flips open faster and is just tougher. Sure, the CQCs are good—the Commander’s better.”

The weight, Bolan noted, was good.

“Thank you,” he said, handing the knife back to the man.

“Not interested, huh?” A smile peeked out from the old man’s thick beard. He replaced the knife, set down the Emerson case and slid back the glass. Then he pointed at another one, containing Masters of Defense Beshara knives. “How ’bout these?”

Bolan let himself be lectured on the relative merits of the old man’s knives, all the while taking glances around in search of Galloway. At one point, he put on a shamefaced tone, and said, “Sorry, I’m supposed to be meeting a friend here, and he’s late. Can I see the XSF-1?”

Eventually, he thanked the old man and excused himself, continuing to walk the floor, but still no sign of Galloway after several hours.

Just then, the Executioner saw a short man with curly hair and walleyes heading toward a gun-shop booth. He was wearing a pair of thick-lensed glasses, though different from the set in the picture Bolan had seen at Stony Man. He had also grown back the beard, though it wasn’t as full as it had been in the older picture, and had flecks of gray in it now. Galloway was wearing a denim jacket that had seen better decades over a stained white T-shirt, and frayed blue jeans with a hole in the left knee and another in the rear left pocket.

From there, it was a simple tail operation. The convention hall was crowded enough that Bolan didn’t have to worry much about Galloway noticing him. The booths were arranged in a grid pattern, so Bolan made as if he were simply working his way up and down the aisles. He took the opposite route Galloway took, so he would pass the target once in each aisle.

Galloway, Bolan noticed, didn’t spend very much time looking at the guns, but instead seemed to be focused on the people. One would expect no less from a recruiter. He also tended to spend a lot of time staring at the few women who were attending. Some of the shops even had so-called “booth babes,” scantily clad models hired to attract men to their merchandise. Galloway even tried chatting a couple of them up. But they all went to the default sales pitch and deflected any and all attempts at personal conversation with the ease of long practice.

Eventually, Galloway worked his way to the food court, at which point Bolan walked up to an ammunition dealer and pointed at a rifle bullet. Putting on a Southern accent, he asked, “That there a .50 caliber round? Looks a mite too small.”

The dealer, a tall, wiry man with large brown eyes and whose hands never seemed to stop moving, said, “This, sir, is a .416 Barrett rifle round. This is the newest in rifle armament, know what I’m sayin’? This is infinitely superior to those crappy old .50 cals. That’s old school, and with all due respect to old school, this is new school, know what I’m sayin’?”

“How’s it better, exactly?” Bolan asked, already knowing the answer.

“This puppy shoots flatter and faster than the .50s, and also hits way harder, know what I’m sayin’?” The man flailed his arms a bit and then picked up a .50-caliber shell and held it next to the .416. “Now I know what you’re thinking right now.”

Bolan was fairly sure he didn’t, but let him go on.

“You’re thinking to yourself, �How can a bullet that’s of a lesser caliber be better than a bullet of a greater caliber?’ That there’s the beauty of this here round, is that the shorter height allows for much greater speed and durability.”

Having satisfied himself that enough time had passed, the Executioner said, “Good to know. Thankee kindly, mister. I’ll definitely be considerin’ this next time I’m buyin’ me some huntin’ rounds.”

“Good man.” The dealer put down the shells and flailed a few more times. “You sure I can’t convince you to purchase a few now?”

“Nah, I’m just grazin’.” With that, the Executioner headed off to the food court in the hopes of finding precisely what he was looking for.

The food court was the typical sort for a convention center. An entire section of wall was taken up with a metal counter, behind which were limp-looking hot dogs, stale popcorn, limp, packaged salads, uninspiring packaged sandwiches, soggy pizza and fountain soda, all priced in excess of market value.

Because of that, the large round tables in front of the counter were sparsely occupied. Each table sat up to eight people comfortably, but none was fully occupied. One had a couple seated at it, enjoying each other’s company more than the food. Another had three men, all wearing flannel shirts and ballcaps, discoursing loudly on the subject of the best hunting grounds in central Pennsylvania. Another was occupied by two couples who were discussing whether the Philadelphia Phillies had another shot at winning the division that year.

Galloway sat alone at another table, hungrily biting into a slice of pepperoni pizza and washing it down with a large soda.

Not really trusting the food to do good things to his gastrointestinal tract, the Executioner limited himself to a diet cola from the fountain. Once he paid for it, Bolan walked casually to the table where Galloway sat chewing on his pizza, the grease from the pepperoni dripping into his beard and onto his T-shirt.

Still affecting the Southern accent, Bolan said, “Mind if I sit a spell, mister?”

Galloway shrugged. “It’s a free country.” He spoke in a raspy voice.

“Yeah, that’s what they tell me, anyhow. You here buyin’?”

Mouth full of pizza, Galloway said, “Window-shopping.”

“Right there with you, mister. See, I can’t afford most of the firearms hereabouts. Hell, I can’t even afford none of the food beyond this here pop. Good thing it’s only nine bucks to get in.”

“Things are tough all over,” Galloway said, swallowing his pizza and grabbing his own soda.

“Don’t I know it. Man with my skills I ought to be able to be drownin’ in work, but the damn Marines had other notions.”

“You served?”

“You betcha. Rifle company Baker two-niner. Was a gunnery sergeant, till they kicked me out, anyhow. Served in the Gulf the first time.”

“Discharged?”

“Yup. And not the honorable kind, neither. Thought the notion was to kill the enemy, not coddle ’em.” Bolan sipped his soda, then set it down and held out a hand. “Sorry, my momma raised me better than this. Name’s Michael Burns.”

Galloway accepted the handshake but did not return the introduction. “Pleased to meet you, Sergeant Burns.”

Bolan noticed that Galloway’s handshake was clammy and greasy, the latter no doubt from the pizza. “Been almost fifteen years since anybody called me that, mister. Just call me Michael.”

Breaking the handshake, Galloway said, “You can call me Galloway. You looking for work, Michael?”

“Well, I’m gainfully employed, if that’s whatcha mean, but it ain’t nothin’ that makes use of my skills, if you follow me. Still in uniform, but it’s the type where they issue you a mop and bucket ’stead of a sidearm and holster. Been a few years since I got me that kinda work—man’s work—man’s work.” He shook his head. “Goddamn Marines.”

“Well, Michael, I might be able to help you out. You have a card?”

Bolan snorted. “You’re kiddin’, right? Kinda business I’m in—”

Galloway held up a hand. “Of course. How long are you in town?”

“Due back at my job tomorrow—’less, of course, I got me a reason to call in sick?”

“I’d say you do.” Galloway reached into his denim jacket pocket and pulled out a small spiral notepad and a pen. He wrote something down and ripped the page out of the notepad. Handing it across the table, Galloway said, “Come to this address tomorrow at noon. Consider it a job interview.”

Bolan hesitated, staying in character. “Job interview? Hang on a sec, mister, we’re just talkin’ here. I mean, I was just lookin’ for some conversation, if you follow me. I ain’t trollin’ for—”

“Maybe not, but if you’re what you say you are, the people I represent might be interested in you—especially since we had a couple of job openings recently.”

Drawing himself up, and still not taking the paper, Bolan said, “The hell you mean, what I say I am? You callin’ me a liar, Galloway?” He also noted the line about job openings. If he really did represent Black Cross—or whoever killed those retired operatives—then it was likely that the bloodstains at Mohonk Mountain represented dead bodies, not just wounded ones. If so, the Executioner was impressed that Bethke had been able to take down one or two of his killers—though it was small comfort.

Holding up his hands, the paper flapping with the motion, Galloway said, “No, Michael, I’m not calling you a liar, not at all. But some soldiers have been known to exaggerate their accomplishments a bit.”

Surprised that someone who worked with ex-military types would make such a blunder, confusing an Army soldier with a Marine, Bolan said, “Look, they may’ve discharged me, but I’m a Marine, not a soldier. We don’t lie—we leave that to the soldiers an’ sailors an’ airedales.”

“Fair enough,” Galloway said quickly. “Look, let’s just call this a fortuitous coincidence, all right?” He held out the paper again.

Bolan snatched it. It was stained with pepperoni grease, but it provided an address on North Gulph Road.

“That’s in the park across the street,” Galloway said.

Nodding, Bolan said, “I know it, yeah.” It was the Valley Forge National Historical Park, which commemorated the famous Revolutionary War battle fought in this area in the winter of 1777–1778.

“Good. Maybe we can do business.”

“Just came here for pleasure, Galloway—but hey, if business comes out of it, I ain’t gonna complain.”

Popping the last of his pizza into his mouth, Galloway said, “Sometimes things work out.”

“Reckon they do, yeah.” Bolan placed the slip of paper into his pocket. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow then, Galloway, huh?”

Galloway got to his feet, holding his cup of soda and gathering up the empty plate and paper napkin. “I hope so, Michael.”

He went to the nearest garbage can and dumped the plate and napkin, then headed toward the restroom.

The Executioner finished his soda, dropped it into the same garbage can, then headed straight for the exit. He needed to find a place to stay for the night. The convention center had two hotels attached to it, and since this was the last day of the show, there were likely to be rooms available.

Next day, he would start his quest to see if the Black Cross was real. And if it was, it wouldn’t be for much longer.




3


The woman who killed Albert Bethke sat by the pool in a Cayman Islands resort, watching the men watch her. She was wearing as skimpy a bikini as she could get away with, along with large sunglasses and a straw hat to protect her from the tropical sun. Bobby pins kept the hat secure on the red-haired wig she wore, as the trade winds occasionally blew through with particular force, funneled by the two thirteen-story towers of the resort hotel. The hat had a purple band with a large flower on the side. She kept her hotel room key inside that band.

The remnants of a margarita sat next to her. The bartender had put salt on the rim of the glass, despite her specifically requesting it without.

She’d enjoyed her vacation—salted margarita notwithstanding. It was also business related, as her bank account was down here, and she preferred to check on her money in person rather than online. There was something satisfying about checking it in person, being able to touch your own money, so to speak.

She was born in Russia with the name Ida Kaprov, but nobody had called her that name for six years. At the age of ten, she and her family emigrated to the U.S., living in suburban New Jersey. She attended UCLA and was recruited by the Los Angeles Police Department, which was trying to bust a crime ring that was using Eastern European immigrant women for online sex shows, prostitution, strip clubs and escorts—and also as drug mules.

The bust was a success, in large part due to her efforts. She’d proved herself a natural at undercover work, and had continued to work undercover, first for the LAPD, then for the FBI. Her ability to speak Russian combined with her stunning good looks and hourglass figure made her a valuable asset. Men in particular were susceptible to her charms.

In addition, she was a crack shot, having scored the highest rating of any woman in LAPD history on the shooting range. She’d even considered applying for the SWAT team, but her superiors convinced her that she was better off as an undercover agent.

Ida quickly grew disillusioned with law enforcement, however. The institutionalized sexism was stifling, and the very qualities that made her good undercover also made her a target for her Neanderthal colleagues. Plus, she found the restrictions to be far too binding. Most of the people arrested in her cases didn’t deserve to wait for trial, they simply should have been shot between the eyes, ridding the Earth of their filth once and for all.

The straw that broke her back was seven years after she’d first been recruited. She found herself infiltrating another online sex-prostitution-stripper-escort ring that was run by the same people as the group she’d helped bring down as a new recruit—they’d never seen a day of jail time for the bust years earlier.

Sure enough, they got off again, and this time Ida followed up on some rumors she’d heard about a group of elite assassins called the Black Cross. The finest assassins in the world, they would kill anyone for a price and were never traced.

However, such quality did not come cheap. But by this time, her parents had died, leaving her with a sizable inheritance, which combined with her own life savings, allowed her to put a hit on the two men and one woman who ran the ring.

After they died, the Black Cross asked her if she wanted to join them.

On that day, Ida Kaprov died and “Ms. White” was born. The Black Cross’s operatives were all given names based on color. The Black Cross had stayed operational over the years due to its tight security, including their members not being identifiable even to one another.

The last op had been particularly gratifying. The fact that she was the only survivor of a three-person team actually gave her a particular thrill. It made her feel that she was better than anyone else—certainly better than Mr. Green and Mr. Mauve, who’d both been killed by the target—and that was a compelling rush.

She decided that she deserved a reward.

Gazing around the pool, she tried to figure out which of the men drooling over her curvy figure, barely contained by the tiny fabric of her bikini, she would take back to her room.

She rejected three as too old, two as too tanned, and one as too young.

That left her with two choices: the dark-haired man in the purple Speedo with the lean, muscular body, or the blond-haired man in blue bathing trunks with the wide shoulders.

When a woman came over to the dark-haired man and kissed him, Ms. White realized that she had only one choice. Not that she didn’t sometimes enjoy the challenge of seducing a man who was already attached, but she didn’t feel like going to that level of effort this day.

After finishing off the remnants of her margarita, Ms. White got to her feet and walked slowly to the blond-haired man. He had been openly staring at her for quite some time, until he realized she was heading for him, at which point he made a show of staring at the pool, the bar, the hotel, the palm trees—anything except her.

She pushed her sunglasses down her nose so she could peer at him from over the frame. “You’ve been staring at me for over an hour now.”

He looked around nervously, not making eye contact. “Um—”

“Are you denying it?” She spoke in a mildly harsh tone.

“I, uh—” Then he broke down, looked at her and smiled. “I guess I really can’t, huh?” His voice was deep and pleasant, like waves crashing over rocks.

She smiled back. “Do you like what you see?”

“Wouldn’t have been staring if I didn’t. Nothin’ in the world better than a curvy redhead, I always say.”

“Do you want to see more?”

The smile widened, showing perfect white teeth. “Not much left to see.”

“Oh, but it’s worth it. You have a room here?”

Within minutes, they were in the hallway outside his room, and he was fumbling in the fanny pack he’d brought with him to the pool containing money, ID, and his room key. Eventually, he liberated the plastic card and inserted it into the slot. The green light came on, and he pushed the door open.

The moment the door closed behind her, she grabbed the blond-haired man by the back of his head, turned him around and started kissing him.

He returned the kiss hungrily, his tongue sliding into her mouth.

Conveniently, they were both wearing very little, so it was the work of only a second or two for him to remove her bikini and her to remove his swimming trunks. Her straw hat, however, remained on her head, still secured by the bobby pins, as did the wig.

They remained kissing while standing upright, now both naked, and peering between his legs, she could see how pleased he was by this turn of events. Eventually, she maneuvered him to one of the room’s two double beds, throwing him playfully but forcefully onto his back.

She pleasured him for a minute or two, as she often did to make sure that the man she was with was fully aroused. That was often not much of a concern, but she knew that her partners enjoyed it. He also reached down and tried to fondle her breasts; she admired his enthusiasm.

Finally, she climbed onto the bed, her legs straddling his hips, and lowered herself onto him. They both moaned with the pleasure of the moment as she rocked her hips.

Within only a few seconds, though, she could feel his body tense as he started to climax.

Reaching up, she slid her hand under the brim of the straw hat and pulled out one of the Hibben throwing knives that she’d taken off the corpse of the late, unlamented Mr. Mauve.

Just as the blond man climaxed, moaning in pleasure, Ms. White plunged the point of the Hibben knife into his carotid artery.

Ms. White felt his death throes combined with his pleasure, and only then did she also climax, as blood gushed all over the hotel bed from the wound she’d created.

For several seconds, Ms. White sat there, feeling the pleasure crest over her.

Then she climbed off the corpse and yanked the knife from its neck. More blood poured out of the wound, though it no longer gushed, with the heart having stopped pumping.

Turning around and not giving the young man another thought, Ms. White went into the bathroom to wash off her right hand, which was the only place she’d gotten blood on herself. Over the years, she’d perfected this particular sequence of events to the point where she got no blood on her whatsoever—except on the hand that wielded the killing knife. She’d yet to figure out a way to entirely avoid that.

Leaving her hand wet rather than risk leaving any trace evidence on the hotel towel, Ms. White went back into the room, climbed into her bikini bottoms and tied the bikini top.

After she exited the hotel room, she headed to the crossover bridge to the other tower where her own room was, retrieving her key from the band in her hat. Once inside, she removed both hat and wig and tossed them into the bathtub. Pausing to remove the battery from the room’s smoke detector, Ms. White then grabbed a book of matches from the hotel restaurant that she’d tossed on the desk the night before. She struck one match, lighting it, and set the hat and the wig on fire.

As both items burned, Ms. White removed the bikini bottoms, then the female condom, wrapping it in a bit of toilet paper. She’d dispose of it later, somewhere off the hotel grounds. She put a T-shirt over the bikini top, then donned a pair of panties and khaki shorts. Reaching into the shorts pocket, she opened her cell phone and discovered a text message that simply read: Call.

She dialed the current number for the Black Cross headquarters, which was in a cabin in the Redwood forests of Humboldt County, California—this month. A voice on the other side said, “Ms. White, return to base ASAP.”

“I’ll be on the next plane,” she said. “I’m finished here anyhow.”



AFTER CHECKING OUT of the resort, using the credit card of one of her many false identities, Ms. White booked a flight to the Eureka/Arcata Airport in Northern California using a different ID. There was a delay in the connecting flight at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, but eventually she arrived safely.

As expected, the Black Hawk piloted by Mr. Silver was waiting to take her from Eureka/Arcata to Black Cross HQ. When the Black Hawk landed, she was met by the tall, dark-skinned, bald-headed Mr. Indigo. He stared at her with his wide, intense brown eyes, and said, “Welcome home.”

Unlike most other heterosexual men, Mr. Indigo didn’t stare at her chest, even though the flower-print sundress she had changed into showed considerable cleavage. For his part, Mr. Indigo was, as always, wearing an immaculate charcoal three-piece suit. Were it not so immaculate, Ms. White would have been convinced that he slept in it, since he never wore anything else in her presence.

As he accompanied her to the cabin that was a quarter mile from the airfield, Mr. Indigo said, “Our man Galloway found a potential new recruit. Given the way we’ve been hemorrhaging operatives lately…”

Ms. White nodded. Besides Misters Mauve and Green, another operative had been killed in the Redmond assassination, and three more had retired. They were down to only six, and she knew that Mr. Indigo preferred their fighting strength to be an even dozen.

“Who is this new man?”

They entered the cabin, and Mr. Indigo led her to a laptop, which had a generic screen saver running on the monitor. Mr. Indigo touched the button under the track pad, causing the screen to change to that of a U.S. Marine Corps dossier on a gunnery sergeant. His name was blacked out—a standard Black Cross security protocol.

“He’s a former jarhead,” Mr. Indigo explained, “and he’s been a merc since then. Sharpshooter. He’s had trouble finding work lately because he’s too brutal.”

“I wasn’t aware that you could be too brutal for the Marines.”

Giving her the tiniest of smiles—which was as emotional as he ever got—Mr. Indigo said, “There’s a first time for everything. He has a tendency to kill people regardless of whether they’re supposed to be killed, which irked his superiors in the Corps. After that, he became a merc, and that same tendency irked a few of his employers, too.”

“I can imagine,” Ms. White said. “We have no such compunctions, though.”

“Indeed not. Galloway has him set up for his interview tomorrow. I want you to pick the talent for it and supervise the process.”

Ms. White blinked. That was something usually left to operatives with more experience than her. “Why me?”

“I’d say you’ve earned the promotion.” Mr. Indigo stared at her with those intense eyes. “You’ve been my best operative since you were hired six years ago. With Mr. Red, Mr. Brown and Ms. Violet retiring, and losing Mr. Green, Mr. Mauve and Ms. Yellow, you’re the one I trust the most right now.”

Unsure if she was being complimented, or if she was simply the best of a series of bad choices, Ms. White instead just asked, “Where is the interview to be held?”

“Valley Forge. Find a half dozen or so from the usual sources and get them set up at eleven tomorrow. The interview’s at noon.”

Ms. White winced. That was all the way across the country, which meant she’d need to leave immediately to have time to set things up.

However, Mr. Indigo wasn’t one to give compliments lightly. If he was going to trust her with such an operation, it meant good things for her. Specifically, it meant more pay—which was, after all, her primary motivation—given his use of the word promotion. The idealistic college student who’d thought she’d be doing some good in the world had long since died. The realities of life beat that idealism right out of her.

Mr. Indigo opened another window on the laptop. “There’s an e-ticket in the name of Alma White at Eureka/Arcata for a flight to Denver, and then a connecting flight to Philadelphia. You’ve got one hour.”

Just enough time to shower and change her clothes. She wanted to get the smell of the blond man off her anyhow.




4


Bolan drove the Ford Escort down North Gulph Road to the location on the greasy slip of paper given to him the previous day by Galloway. North Gulph was one of many roads that led through Valley Forge National Historical Park.

The Executioner thought it repugnant that someone like the Black Cross—if it was indeed behind all this—would sully the heroic sacrifice of the soldiers who fought against tyranny on this ground in the eighteenth century with their “job interview” of a potential assassin. That they happily accepted commissions to murder retired government operatives like Redmond, Bethke, Grosso and Lang just made it worse.

Bolan brought the Escort to a halt and turned off the ignition. He was about five minutes early for his appointment with Galloway, which was just enough time to check over his armament.

Unburdened by the security of a gun show, the Executioner was fully armed with a Mark XIX .357 Magnum Desert Eagle pistol, a 9 mm SIG-Sauer P-226 handgun and an RRA Tactical Entry 5.56 mm rifle. He checked the clips of all three in succession, making sure they were fully loaded and that he had spare ammo for all three.

Of course, if his recon of the park earlier that morning was any indication, he wouldn’t be given much opportunity to reload.

The Executioner wasn’t surprised that the Black Cross’s notion of a job interview was to send several people to try to kill him. If they succeeded, he wouldn’t get the job, and as an added bonus, what little he knew about them would die with him.

If they didn’t succeed, he was worthy of being an elite assassin. From the perspective of the Black Cross, it was win-win.

Bolan assumed that the six people hiding in the nearby trees, whom he’d noticed during his earlier recon, were there to perform that task. They likely weren’t actual Black Cross assassins—Bolan couldn’t imagine that they’d stay in business long if their top assassins’ lives were being so easily thrown away on something like this—but mercenaries hired to see if Michael Burns was Black Cross material. Three were up in the trees, the others on the ground.

While Bolan didn’t kill innocents, he didn’t think anyone who killed a stranger for pay qualified as such.

Though it was sunny and warm, it was still a bit chillier than it had been the day before, a cold wind coming in off the Delaware River, which worked in the Executioner’s favor. He was able to holster the rifle on a strap sewn inside the right-hand side of his fleece jacket, which he left unzipped. A similar strap on the left secured the Desert Eagle, with the SIG-Sauer in a Safariland 1060 shoulder holster that fit snugly next to the Kevlar bulletproof vest.

Opening the door of the Escort, Bolan climbed out and closed the door behind him, but didn’t lock it. One of the modifications Stony Man had arranged to have made to the vehicle was a bulletproof body and windows. He wanted the option of being able to open the door and use it as a shield once the firing started, as it inevitably would.

Bolan took up position against the car’s hood, waiting for Galloway to make his appearance.

For a brief moment, he simply enjoyed the quiet, the smell of the freshly cut grass, the feel of the light breeze, the warmth of the sun on his stubble-covered face. For years Bolan’s life had been dedicated solely to the pursuit of those who broke the law while sitting from a lofty place above it, avoiding judgment for their acts. His life as Justice’s proxy left him with little time for indulgences such as enjoying a warm spring day.




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