Книга - Slayground

Slayground
Don Pendleton


SWAMP FEVERSNational security is on the line when a senator's daughter disappears from her Florida college. The leader of the cult responsible is desperate to boost his sect's influence by gaining access to the sensitive government information the girl possesses…even if she dies in the process. Needing to act fast, but quietly, the White House sends Mack Bolan deep into the swamplands.Bolan's mission is to rescue the girl before she gives up any secrets, but infiltrating the leader's stronghold is no easy feat. Using the humid, marshy landscape to their advantage, the cult has laced the swamps with armed guards and deadly traps. And when Bolan discovers the sect's most dangerous weapons threaten the mind, not the body, he realizes he'll need more than guns and brawn to win this battle. But the Executioner has put his faith in justice, and he won't quit until his enemies are converted.







SWAMP FEVERS

National security is on the line when a senator’s daughter disappears from her Florida college. The leader of the cult responsible is desperate to boost his sect’s influence by gaining access to the sensitive government information the girl possesses…even if she dies in the process. Needing to act fast, but quietly, the White House sends Mack Bolan deep into the swamplands.

Bolan’s mission is to rescue the girl before she gives up any secrets, but infiltrating the leader’s stronghold is no easy feat. Using the humid, marshy landscape to their advantage, the cult has laced the swamps with armed guards and deadly traps. And when Bolan discovers the sect’s most dangerous weapons threaten the mind, not the body, he realizes he’ll need more than guns and brawn to win this battle. But the Executioner has put his faith in justice, and he won’t quit until his enemies are converted.


He gestured to Elena to keep quiet.

Ahead of them, he spotted a small group of cult members. They were clustered, whispering, their postures uncertain.

Leaving the young woman under the dinosaur spine of a rollercoaster, he crept forward until the men were in earshot. He shouldered the HK and slipped the Tekna from its sheath. The three were too preoccupied to notice him...until it was too late.

Bolan took out the man nearest him with a punch to the throat. The soldier moved toward the second man, following up his punch to the first with a stamp that crushed the guy’s nose and cheekbone. Bolan lunged and thrust upward, driving the Tekna under the second guy’s ribs. As the man fell, the soldier turned, pulling the knife out.

The third man sprinted away. Bolan began to follow, but instinct held him back. The acolyte ran over a rumpled tarpaulin, and his foot caught a loop of wire and loosened a stake that scythed between two huts, its arc vicious and true. The point caught the man at neck level, slicing his head from his body, which continued forward for two steps before collapsing across the boardwalk.

Bolan could do nothing as the stake hit a metal strut with a resounding clang, splinters of thick wood flying. Bolan winced as a chunk of wood sliced into his thigh. He cursed as he pulled it out.

He looked down at the wood in his hand and cursed again. Even in the shadows he could see that one end of the long splinter was stained darker. If he was lucky, the stain was his own blood. If not, then he had a real problem.


Slayground

The Executioner

Don Pendleton







Power that is acquired by violence is only usurpation and only lasts as long as the force of the individual who commands can prevail over the force of those who obey.

—Denis Diderot

from The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert

Whether the violence is physical or psychological, it is my duty to take down those who seek to exploit and control people weaker than themselves.

—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 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

Cover (#u3ae8ea8c-7345-5751-8b80-6c618ce36664)

Back Cover Text (#ub5b775b0-f172-577f-ba39-62c8cfc1aba4)

Introduction (#u137f22d3-8e52-5827-8300-867c9e538b07)

Title Page (#u86af56df-b102-5505-8b5c-c0fdbccfb0e1)

Quotes (#uf9e3eafa-dc94-5d83-a361-aacbcdc6e7ee)

The Mack Bolan Legend (#u48a66cda-1f79-57d1-b384-f0c3a28aaaa0)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_7c85ba51-2259-5e21-9cf3-2712c13db562)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_0606ccf1-442b-5ace-b1ff-382591212f82)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_76c341a3-7902-5747-a5e9-174f0fda5d49)

Chapter 4 (#ulink_8549f0b2-65f2-59c1-9ca2-76ffa50a70d3)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter 1 (#ulink_03723378-a851-5eb6-adf6-b7037456fee5)

“Do as I say and no one will get hurt. Don’t, and maybe you will.” The words were followed by a vulpine grin that suggested the speaker would love someone to step out of line so he could show he meant what he said.

It didn’t look as if he was going to get the opportunity. Inside the Griffintown branch of the Florida First State Bank, everyone had hit the floor. It was a small space, between the half-frosted glass wall facing the street and the main counter. The lines to the tellers were cramped by tables for deposit slips. There had been two tellers on duty, five customers, and an aging security guard who had been slow on the uptake and due to retire in three weeks. If the pool of blood soaking the carpet around his head was anything to go by, he wasn’t likely to make retirement.

Thursday afternoon, and the two mothers with babies, the hardware store clerk depositing takings, and the two men waiting to withdraw cash and cursing the defective ATM had been shocked for a frozen moment by the four people who had slipped in and bolted the double doors. A man and a woman stood at the front windows, the woman nervously peering out, then rapidly glancing back to the interior, the man coolly training his Glock machine pistol on the floor. The woman carried a mini-Uzi. Anyone who looked carefully enough would see it gently shaking.

The vulpine man, whose bearing and speech marked him as the alpha male, had strode into the middle of the room, whipping an HK MP5 from beneath his duster and waving it in an arc, the implicit threat enough to make the customers and tellers snap out of their fear freeze and hit the deck. The woman who had joined him was stone-faced, her eyes unreadable, but leaving little doubt as to her intent.

The vulpine man looked up to one of the closed-circuit television cameras that surveyed the bank interior from all angles.

“An audience. Good. I want you to listen. We do not want to harm these people, but if they get in our way, they are expendable. Make no doubt of that. Today’s little raid is to help finance our crusade against the state that seeks to oppress us and to force us ever closer to extinction. We have inside knowledge of the way in which our government—which has the audacity to claim that it serves on our behalf—is working, and we will bring it to its knees. As you can see, we have Elena Anders, who is a devotee of the Seven Stars, and who is committed to our cause. Through her, we have discovered more of the secrets of power. When the time is right, and we can launch our revolution of the heart and mind, her knowledge will be shared with more than just our existing brethren. Then the fire of justice can spread throughout the land, and we will be as free as our constitution promises we are.”

The woman murmured something too low for the mics on the CCTV to pick up clearly. The alpha man shot her a venomous glance, but nodded briefly in deference to her and turned to the tellers.

“You—out here, now. Don’t give me no time-lock shit, either. The locks you have on the vaults here have manual overrides. I want you and everyone in the back room out here now. Call the sheriff and it’s the babies who’ll get it first. You want that on your piggy little consciences?”

To emphasize his point, he fired a short burst into the floor between the two mothers, who screamed hysterically as they clutched their children to them.

It had the desired effect: within a couple minutes, bank bags with cash, securities and items from safe deposit had been piled on the counter, ready to be carried out. The vulpine man’s psychology had been sound; this was a small town where everyone was either distantly related or friends of friends. There were no strangers here, and no one wanted anyone to get hurt. They complied almost with eagerness.

He gestured to his stone-faced companion and to the nervous woman by the door. They moved forward and loaded the haul into large hemp sacks, which they then carried toward the doors as their compatriot undid the bolts. The vulpine man covered their retreat, pausing before he exited to stare directly at the camera above the door. His smile this time was arrogant and triumphant before he moved out of frame.

The footage continued for a few minutes after this. The people in the bank were too shocked to move or make a sound for a few eerie seconds. In the distance, the sirens of a late-arriving cruiser approached. The raiders’ research and preparation had been good—they’d picked a time when the sheriff’s staff roster was low, and they’d placed hoax calls that stretched the department’s resources, dragging officers far from the main street and buying valuable time.

Then, just before the CCTV footage finally elapsed, the silence was broken by a wail of fear and relief from one of the mothers. After that, pandemonium broke out, as the hardware clerk and one of the men rushed to offer what first aid they could to the stricken security guard, while the bank staff and the other male customer tried to comfort the mothers and children.

The picture cut out abruptly just as the sheriff’s team entered the bank.

Hal Brognola hit the remote, and the wide-screen monitor on which they had been viewing the footage blinked and shut off.

“What about the guard?” Mack Bolan asked, although he was certain he already knew what the big Fed would say.

“Three days in intensive care. Didn’t regain consciousness,” he said shortly, shaking his head. “Albert Myres, sixty-year-old vet. Fifteen years on the Jacksonville sheriff’s department, twenty-five in the service.”

“Some part-time job for retirement,” the soldier said. His tone was brooding, both at the waste of the old man’s life, and the stupidity of the suits who had thought nothing of putting him in that position.

Brognola shrugged. “People walk around with their eyes shut all the time, Striker. Not much we can do about that. And to be fair, this is a real sleepy town where nothing much happens aside from the annual gator hunt. It’s a family and retirement town, with just the newspaper industry to keep it afloat.”

Bolan frowned. “Newspapers? In rural Florida?”

“I use the term loosely.” Brognola shrugged. “It’s the editorial and printing headquarters for the Midnight Examiner. Hardly cutting edge news, but—”

“But it’s been a while since I was in line at the supermarket long enough to be tempted,” Bolan finished. “I had no idea that rag was still going.”

“It’s not what it was, but it keeps the town afloat. More relevant to us, it still has a strong circulation, and being the only game in town, it got to the CCTV before we did.”

Bolan’s eyebrow quirked. “We, Hal? Why would a small-town robbery interest you that much?”

“You heard the man on the movie. Elena Anders.”

As he spoke, Brognola tossed a copy of the Midnight Examiner across the desk. Bolan picked it up and scanned the headlines. “But there’s nothing in here about any bank robberies.”

“Exactly,” Brognola said.

As Bolan read on, it became obvious that the Midnight Examiner’s reputation as a celebrity scandal sheet and paranormal purveyor left its writers ill-equipped to cover the kind of story that had fallen into their laps.

“The Seven Stars is a religious cult,” Brognola explained. “They peddle a mix of Christianity and an apocalyptic worldview fueled by too many B-movies and ‘true-life’ UFO books. A few months ago, Senator Dale Anders’s daughter, Elena, left her college in Tampa and fell in with this cult. Our intel stops there. At this point, we can only speculate about how much of Ms. Anders’s participation is willing, and how much of it is forced.”

Bolan sighed as he threw down the tabloid. “They clearly excel in stories about celebrity diets and alien abductions, but why would they omit such a huge scoop? Especially if they got the footage?” He paused. “There’s a backstory here, right? And it won’t be long before the serious reporters start sniffing around.”

Brognola nodded, but remained silent.

“There’s a reason this hasn’t broken yet,” Bolan continued. “And there’s a reason you called me here.”

Brognola walked across the room and stared out his office window.

“Dale Anders is a good man, Striker. A kind, fair man. That’s rare enough among senators, these days. He’s the kind of guy Jimmy Stewart would have played.”

“We’re not doing this—whatever this is—because you like him, Hal,” Bolan said softly.

The big Fed shook his head. “No, but it is relevant. Dale really cares about his job. He’s never courted headlines, and doesn’t see this as a fast track to presidential nomination. He actually wants to make a difference. Both sides of the House like him, despite policy differences. He’s got integrity. I know he was worried about Elena for a good while before she finally disappeared. He even tried to accept that she was old enough to make her own decisions, even though it killed him. But anyone with half a brain gets alarm bells ringing when it comes to crank cults, and so he called me up for some advice, and maybe some information. He’d been trying to establish some kind of communication with her for several months, and I’d kept the press at bay for him. We both hoped this could be resolved without any undue attention.”

“Not much chance of that now,” Bolan said quietly.

“This is the third raid in as many weeks,” Brognola said. “That’s a hell of a lot. They’re either trying to grab as much as possible before the law catches up with them, or else they desperately need the cash. And if that’s the case, then you’ve got to wonder why. Just what do they have planned?”

“So what do you know about them?”

“The asshole with the HK who loves the camera is Duane Johansen. Thirty-four, served ten years on a robbery charge. Files show that there were probably a whole lot more that he didn’t get arraigned for because of lack of evidence.”

“These cults will take anyone these days. Other IDs?”

“Not on this raid. The woman standing next to Johansen is on all three, but she hasn’t been identified. On the second raid they had a crystal meth dealer named Arnie Fry, who’s dabbled in illegal arms on a small scale.”

“So they know what they’re doing. At least, some of them do. What about the rest of the cult?”

“The Seven Stars. When they align it will be a sign that the time of great change is on us, blah-blah-blah. The usual.” Hal waved dismissively. “There’s a file on them that I can get Bear to download for you. It’s not pretty reading. The usual collection of misfits, criminals and the confused.”

Bolan nodded. “I get your point, but it could be dangerous to think of them that simply. These raids seem to have been pretty well planned and executed. If they can do that...”

“I know,” Brognola agreed, rubbing his forehead.

“Well, what would make her—or them—a target?” Bolan asked.

Brognola smiled wryly. “On the money, Striker. Dale is a very conscientious man. He serves on committees that deal with the procurement and deployment of software and hardware that are vital to homeland security. A lot of very sensitive information passes through his hands.”

“Blackmail, then?”

“It doesn’t have to be that crude. We’re pretty sure that the Seven Stars have put two and two together, and it won’t be long before other enemies of the homeland do so when more information leaks.”

“What kind of information?”

“Elena was a good student before the cult started to get to her. She was like her father—very studious, very conscientious, very hardworking...and very patriotic. College vacations weren’t a holiday for her.”

Bolan assented. “I think I see where you’re going. Not being one for spring break, Elena liked to busy herself helping her father, right?”

Brognola agreed. “She was an additional secretary and researcher, which meant she had access to a lot of sensitive information. Also, her mother died two years ago, so Elena became her father’s confidante when it came to his work.”

“I can see why you wanted to keep a lid on this, and why you’re keen to get her back. But if she had that much access, where the hell was security when they should have been keeping an eye on her?”

“Slipped through the net, Striker. She was never on payroll or official staff. Only Dale really knew how much she was privy to, and that was why he came to me. Make no mistake, this is a sensitive issue.”

Bolan’s tone was grim. “If you have too many agencies involved, crawling over half of Florida, then you alert everyone, from the press to our enemies, that Elena Anders is more than just a runaway daughter. If you leave it to the local boys on the ground, then you’re looking at Waco and a bad result for the senator personally. In between the two, there’s no knowing what these whack-jobs have got out of her and what they’ll do with it.”

“That’s about the size of it. Elena was at Tampa, but since hooking up with the cult she’s moved farther south....”

“I gathered that.” Bolan stood and walked across the room to where a map of the United States covered half of one wall. He reached out and indicated the southern Florida area, around the Keys. “If what just happened here—” he drew a circle with his finger “—and the other two robberies took place within a radius like this, then it figures that the cult is based somewhere within the circle, which would put it right in the swamplands—tough to access without drawing a whole lot of unwanted attention to yourself.”

Brognola nodded. “We know where they are. They make no secret of that. The problem is it’s not exactly easy to get to.” He stepped in front of Bolan and indicated a spot almost in the exact center of the circle the soldier had traced. “There’s an abandoned amusement park that was built in the seventies. Eveland. As in Evel Knieval rather than Adam and Eve. All the rides and attractions were themed around the old rider’s stunts.”

“Should have made a killing back then,” Bolan mused. “And he’s become almost mythical since dying, so why is it a wreck?”

Brognola grinned. “Money. First of all, they neglected to give old Evel any for using his name and image. And even if they’d done that, or won the resulting court case, they were too mean to grease the right palms when it came to getting an interstate re-routed so that it passed nice and close to where they were situated. As a result, it’s been closed for thirty years, a hunk of useless real estate accessible only by one or two small roads that wind through the tropics.”

“Not good for whoever was fool enough to put money in, but more than good enough for this cult’s purposes,” Bolan mused. “So what’s needed is a small force—maybe just one man—who can move quickly and without detection, to extract the Senator’s daughter. Once she’s safe, then that small force can blow them out of the water. That’s if that doesn’t happen during the extraction itself. And that one man would be me, or why else would I be here? Am I right?”

Brognola clapped him on the shoulder. “Striker, you are so on the money today that I’m tempted to send you to the racetracks en route.”


Chapter 2 (#ulink_63acb84e-3fd2-5d80-b524-0a36f85fa1d6)

Elena Anders felt her breath catch as a sob rose in her throat. She tried to choke it back. Her heart was thudding so loudly that she was sure they could hear it as far away as Miami. Her clothes—ripped denim cutoffs and a soiled T-shirt—were clinging to her. She was dripping with sweat, yet her mouth felt as dry as a desert. Her ears were ringing and her head was thumping with the effort she had put in so far, and she could feel the lactic acid burning in her muscles, sapping them of strength as she tried to loosen the paling that was driven deep into the soil, supporting the wire fence. All the while, she was glancing nervously around, the tension and anxiety doing nothing for her aching head. Thoughts that were already a whirl of confusion became even more jumbled, making it an effort to concentrate on the task at hand.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, that part of the distant consciousness that was still able to attain any kind of clarity, she was sure that they were doping her up. She was pretty sure, in fact, that everyone in the compound was getting drugged, in varying degrees. She thought of the area as a compound, like a penitentiary, even though it was supposed to be a commune. Maybe it was someone’s idea of a commune, but it certainly wasn’t hers. Nothing about the Sanctuary of the Seven Stars had been how she had imagined it when they’d ensnared her in Tampa.

Ensnared. Again, that wasn’t what some would call it. Back then, she probably would have agreed with them....

Dammit, Elena, focus, she told herself. It was only by some miracle that she’d been able to slip away from the others. A chance like this wouldn’t come around again in a hurry, so she had to make the most of it.

She braced herself and pushed, so that the paling moved in a circular pattern, carving out a larger hole. Biting through her lip until she could taste the salt of blood, and feel at least a little moisture on her parched tongue, she used the pain to drive her beyond what she thought herself capable of. She gripped the paling, pulled it to her and heaved upward. Despite herself, the effort caused a gasp of pain to escape her bloody lips.

It was done. She staggered under the weight of the picket, letting it fall away from her before it could swing in the other direction and crush her. It dropped with a dull thud, and for a moment she stood panting, listening hard and not quite able to believe that it hadn’t created enough noise to draw anyone to the spot.

Elena forced herself into action. Every second mattered, as her absence could be noticed at any moment. She had to take advantage of this, even though her muscles protested and she felt as if she was moving through the swamp mud that she knew at some point she would have to face.

Where the paling had fallen, it had dragged the wire fencing out of shape, twisting it so that it was raised up from the scrub grass around the perimeter. It gave her a gap just big enough to crawl through. She fell onto her belly and dragged herself forward, ignoring the stones that scraped her stomach and knees, and the sharp ends of wire that snagged her T-shirt and the skin on her back and arms. The extra effort required to pull herself free was almost too much, but fear of what might happen if she was to be found like this, defenseless and with no chance of flight, was enough to spur her on. Finally, she pulled herself through to the other side.

Scrambling to her feet, she half stumbled and half ran into the cover of the thick undergrowth that threatened to encroach on the old theme park, and reclaim it for the Keys.

The main area used by the Seven Stars was on the far side of the park, where the entrance had once stood, the turnstiles now removed to make a large enough path for the cult’s traffic. There were administration buildings and chalets that had been designed for workers, with a cafeteria and shower block that suited the group’s communal lifestyle very well.

Farther into the park, where some of the rides had begun to crumble with age and disuse, the Seven Stars had converted several buildings into garages for the vehicles they had acquired. Farther back still, in the machine housing of some of the rides, was their armory. They used what had once been the operating booth for the park’s central attraction—a series of motorcycles that took riders over and around rows of buses, like a signature Knievel jump—as a safe block for the spoils of their bank raids and other money-gathering activities. This left great swathes of the park unused.

The cult was small—twenty people permanently on site, with a handful of others making forays into the outside world—and they preferred to stay in close proximity to each other. Vast tracts of land lay derelict, the rides slowly being absorbed back into the landscape as the humid climate took its toll on the metal and wood, and tendrils of vegetation crept through the fence and across the cracked concrete. Cult members patrolled these areas, ostensibly to ensure that any outsiders wishing to spy or cause harm were kept at bay. Elena was inclined to think, after a while, that it was more to keep the cult members in.

But what mattered right now was that the patrols were generally conducted at night. Daytime watches were intermittent and mostly assigned when Duane got too much crystal meth in his system and his paranoia got out of control. He wasn’t top banana, but sometimes he acted as if he was. Ricke called him the head of security, and what Ricke said was law in the compound.

It was Ricke who had got her hooked on the Seven Stars. When Elena was at Tampa, she had been determined to devote herself to study. Since her mother died, she had been driven to achieve what both her parents had wanted. The senator was never as demanding a parent as her mother had been, at least not overtly. His attitude was that people had to be motivated by their own inner will and drive, not by coercion. He would have been appalled if he had realized how close to nervous exhaustion she had driven herself, working constantly when she should have been enjoying all aspects of student life, and then returning home to diligently assist her father in his work.

That was where it had all started to go wrong for her. She had no doubt that the senator had the best of motives. But the information that he was privy to, and the kind of actions he would have to sanction should the need arise, made her blood run cold. It seemed so contrary to his nature to be able to sign off on acts of war. Now, removed from the hothouse pressures of her own making, she could see how her father could prioritize and keep a sense of perspective.

She could only wish that had been the case for her. She’d become too wrapped up in her own world, and could not see beyond the realpolitik of the papers she’d read when she was assisting her father. The documents painted a worldview that, for her, was unremittingly bleak, and she despaired of finding a way of life that offered her some hope.

So when a local organization hosted a series of lectures on alternate beliefs and phenomena, she’d grabbed at it eagerly, both as a means of escape and also as a possible pathway to answers.

Looking back, she knew she’d been incredibly vulnerable, and oblivious. Her devotion to her studies and to helping her dad had left her not exactly friendless, but certainly distanced from her peers. Added to this, her absorption into the world of imminent political disaster had left her in a depressed state she only now recognized. The first glimmers of light in the darkness would claim her.

Daniel Ricke had been in the right place at the right time—a tall, graying and soft-spoken man with an insistent tone and a slow-burning, intense charisma. When he spoke, Elena felt that he was talking to her and only her. His voice was melodious, the rhythms of his words drawing her into the meaning. He spoke of how man must make a choice to face the new age with the courage of love alone, leaving behind the material and the venal so he could lose the trappings that kept him in a perpetual state of conflict.

To someone who was trying to come to terms with the kinds of measures that her country would adopt in an emergency, and the kind of actions that would trigger these responses, what Ricke was saying made perfect sense. She’d told him so afterward, and he’d offered to send one of his people to speak with her further.

That was how she met Susan Winkler. She, too, spoke in an insistent manner, though her own voice burned with the fire of the acolyte and was animated in a way that belied her impassive face. Winkler spoke of Ricke’s plans to build a series of communities across the USA, and then across the world—by eschewing the use of internet technology to communicate, and relying instead on the slower, more drawn out process of word of mouth. “The longer the seed takes to flower, the stronger the bloom,” was his creed. Winkler came from a life that had been littered with petty crime and drug abuse; she’d been sent on the wrong path by the influence of the world around her. Now she could see the right way. She had the zealotry of the convert, and the slightly unhinged air of the hard drug abuser. Elena, lost in her own confusion, had not noticed this until it was too late.

With Ricke’s words drummed into her by Winkler, Elena had left Tampa and journeyed to the southeast of the state to join the community. The group was small and hadn’t yet expanded, but they had the power of truth behind them.

“What...a...stupid...moron!” she gasped as she stopped running. Her breath came in rasps that burned at the pit of her stomach, and the humidity was making her sweat. She would have to find some fresh water soon, or dehydration would cripple her. She could already feel her muscles cramping up.

She heard scuttling in the undergrowth, some creature hidden in the lush carpet of green that threatened to trap her. The sun, directly overhead, was shaded by a canopy of trees that left her in shadow. She had no idea where she was headed. If she bore east from the hole in the fence, she should be able to circle around and come out on the rough road that led to the highway. She would have to hope she emerged far enough away from the entrance to the old theme park that she would not be seen.

They must know by now she was gone. Ever since Duane had taken her on an expedition with them, forcing her to hold a gun and play a part in an armed robbery, she had been kept under close observation. She wasn’t sure why. It had taken her long enough to work out any kind of escape, and she was completely unsure of what to do next. She was unlikely to get away and raise an alarm, leading the police to the compound. If she was honest with herself, she was more likely to get lost, have an accident and die alone out here. With a sinking in her gut, she realized that this was the most she could realistically hope for—and what was worse, she would prefer it to being recaptured.

She tried to get her bearings, but all she could see was semitropical swamp that would probably lead her into water and quicksand, with a dense wall of wood and vine before her, in which critters keen to bite her face off certainly lurked. She would just have to guess, hope for the best and press on. There was little else she could do, and standing here waiting to be captured was not on the list. She knew it was illogical, but movement gave her hope.

She began to blunder through the undergrowth once more, now heedless of the sounds she made as she crashed through the vegetation, stumbling over roots and slipping on mud and leaves. Her only goal was to get as far from the compound as possible.

As she ran, her confrontation with Ricke came into her mind. She had replayed it time and again since it had happened. How had she been so stupid as to be taken in by such a charlatan...? Or was he? Maybe he truly believed in what he said, but was so stupid himself that he couldn’t see his own failure to strip himself of the venality for which he castigated the entire human race.

Ricke lived in one chalet with the five women who were his “wives.” It had the best quality furniture, including some antiques that he had acquired along the way, and a large collection of books that spilled untidily across the floor. The “wives” were his alone, whereas everyone else slept and shared communally in a kind of “free love” arrangement that had scared the hell out of Elena. Interestingly—given his preaching—Ricke used a tablet to keep in touch with the outside world, which Elena had noticed at their last meeting. Such things were forbidden to the rest of the community.

Once again, she had told him that she wanted no part of the robberies, that she had no wish to do anything other than leave in peace and say nothing to anyone about the compound. In part this was true, since she would rather no one knew how idiotic she’d been to be sucked in. But she could also see that Ricke was dangerous. Not on a grand scale, but certainly on a local one, especially with psychotics like Duane and Arnie as his right-hand men.

Ricke had sent his wives away when Elena had finished speaking. Only Arnie was left, lurking by the door and laughing softly to himself.

“Sweet child,” Ricke had begun, in tones that made her shudder. “You have to understand that there are means to an end. These people in the outside world are so wrong and misled, and they don’t understand us. It isn’t their fault, but they would never cooperate unless we used the kind of language and behavior they understand. What we do is for the greater good.”

“You can’t seriously expect me to swallow that,” she had replied, despite her instincts screaming out to keep her mouth zipped.

Ricke smiled, but not with his eyes, which stayed ice-cold and hard, penetrating into her. “I don’t expect you to swallow anything, Elena. You came here because you believed. I think you still do. You just need to understand that our methods are justified by the results they obtain. It is all toward the greater good. Perhaps a period of quiet contemplation away from the others would help you realize this. I’m sure we can arrange that. And while you have this quiet time, you may do well to reflect on the things you’ve learned about our pig government from your father—a good man, I’m sure, but misguided. If we know what you know, we can use that to further the cause. Then there will be no need for the measures that, justifiably, cause you so much pain and anguish. Let Arnie show you where our cell of contemplation lies. And think carefully about what I have said to you....”

The softly giggling Arnie had led her out of the chalet and away from the main buildings to the place she had come to think of as a prison cell. And Elena had realized with an awful finality that the only way she would ever see the outside world again was if she escaped.

Thoughts of Ricke and her imprisonment were driven from her head as a black shape stepped out from behind the shelter of a tree and swung a lump of wood, catching her full in the solar plexus as she ran into it.

She retched, spitting out strings of bile, then looked up into the wolfish, leering face of Duane.

“Sugar, you didn’t really think you could outrun me, did you?”


Chapter 3 (#ulink_7d3546d1-0c98-5c58-8b3e-649120825c3f)

First stop for the soldier was a Miami naval base. Flown in by routine flight from Washington, he alighted and was greeted by the site’s chief security officer, who showed him to a one-story block on the perimeter of the airfield.

Waiting for him, laid out on a table, was a driver’s license, rental car registration, a billfold with cash and cards, a TEKNA knife and sheath, a Desert Eagle, gleaming and loaded with spare clips, and a shoulder holster. Sitting on a chair by the side of the desk was an attaché case with surveillance equipment including a monocular night vision headset, a camera and monitor with fiber-optic leads, and long-distance eavesdropping equipment with mic and receiver.

“I didn’t know what kind of ordnance you required, Mr. Cooper, and as for a cell or tablet...well, I figured you’d probably be carrying your own. I can supply extra if you require.”

Bolan nodded appreciatively. “No, that’ll be fine, chief. You’ve done a great job, thanks. Did they give you any indication of why I’m here?”

The security man shook his head. “No, sir, and it’s none of my damn business unless someone decides otherwise. The only thing I will say is that should the need arise, you just call in. Someone with your level of clearance has the privilege of telling me to jump, and how high.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, chief, but I appreciate the offer. As for the ordnance, I figure it’s best for all concerned if I sort that out. No trails,” he added cryptically. “There is one thing you could tell me, though.”

“Just ask,” the chief replied. He was in his late thirties, and had the deep tan of a man who had spent a long time around Miami and the Florida Keys. It was a good bet that he had the kind of local knowledge Bolan needed to tap.

“I’m heading over toward Griffintown, and I could use any on-the-ground intel that I won’t pick up from regular background. You know the place?” The answer was obvious from the way the chief’s eyebrows raised at the mention of the town, despite his attempts to keep a straight face.

“If I may say so, sir, it’s a little off the beaten track for anything major to happen. Sleepy, small-town America—the kind of place they’d set some TV melodrama. The only thing that’s happened there for the last fifty years was a recent bank robbery, where the guard was killed, and even that was supposed to be out-of-towners.”

“Maybe, but isn’t that kind of odd? All my other intel points to the county being a swampland free-for-all. Moonshine and buckshot,” Bolan added for effect.

“That’s true enough, but you’ve got to remember that they’ve got the Midnight there. No one wants to end up on the front page, so they keep their noses clean. It’s always been one of those tabloids that peddles morality, and as it’s the main job provider, it doesn’t pay to cross them. It helps that a lot of whackos are attracted to the area because of it, too. Guys who want to be abducted by little green men don’t tend to be making moonshine,” he added with a grin.

“That figures. Plenty of whackos around here, too, right? Cults and communes?”

“I hear there’s one in an old amusement park, but they act like they’re the Amish, you know? Keep to themselves and don’t have much time for modern technology. They’re harmless.”

“That’s good,” Bolan said, keeping his voice level. Unless someone had reason to look below the surface, the Seven Stars must seem ineffectual from afar. But then, people had said that about Manson, his family and the Spahn Ranch half a century earlier.

For now, though, it was best that the security chief keep his illusions intact. Bolan thanked him and left the base, picking up the Ford sedan from the parking lot before heading out of Miami and into the less populated swamplands. Florida had one of the largest populations of any U.S. state, but the people were tightly packed into areas around the coast, such as Tampa and Miami, state capital Tallahassee and the largest single city, Jacksonville.

That gave Bolan pause for thought. Myres, the security guard who had been brutally struck down, had spent a long and distinguished term of service with the Jacksonville sheriff’s department. Even at his age, he should have been ready for the quartet that had invaded the bank. The fact that they had taken him out so ruthlessly and efficiently suggested that they knew what they were doing, and that they were professional enough to have done their research. This gave the soldier two warnings: one, that they were not going to be caught out on their home turf that easily, and two, that they had sources of information in at least one town in the county. Either that or a source that could cover the whole county...a source such as the sheriff’s office.

Bolan didn’t want anyone to get a scent of who he was or why he was in the area. That meant the press, the Seven Stars themselves, and maybe even the local law enforcement.

Extract the target before her value—other than her human value—became a known commodity. Extract her with a minimum of disruption and consequent attention.

If he was going to do this, he would need more than just a handgun, and he knew where to get ordnance without raising questions or creating ripples in the swamp waters.

Bolan took the first turnoff on the road out of Miami, which would take him to Kendall. It was one of the smaller cities in the Miami metropolitan area, but it was still big enough to have more than its fair share of criminal activity, and not so small that being there would attract any undue attention.

Kendall had a number of housing projects and run-down inner-city areas where businesses and homes had gone to the wall, leaving gangs and street corner crime in their wake. But it also had some areas of regeneration that had sprung up before the double dip recession had hit, and in these areas, entrepreneurs had made some good out of the bad. Suburbs that were buoyed by these pockets of cash still had manicured lawns and stucco one-story haciendas with well-maintained pools. It was into one of these areas that Bolan piloted his rented Ford, pulling up before a house whose address he’d had to check with Stony Man. It had been a long time, and maybe his contact had moved. A large sum from one of Bolan’s war chests had also been wired into a bank account connected to the cards he had picked up. He would probably need it.

Leaving the sedan, Bolan walked across the lawn and through the open side gate. He could hear laughter and voices from the backyard. Three teenage girls in bikinis were frolicking in the pool, splashing each other and laughing. A bony man with cropped graying hair, clad in an orange robe, sat under an umbrella sipping iced tea.

As Bolan approached, the man spoke without turning around. “You’d better have an appointment, old chap. If not, then a lawyer and a doctor, though maybe not in that order.”

“Knock knock,” Bolan replied. “If I knew appointments were necessary these days, I would have called. And you can tell your shadow he can drop the piece. If you still talk in those terms. A Glock semi, right? He’d better be accurate if he wants to be stupid, because I’ll bet I’m quicker.”

“Matt Cooper,” the man murmured in an immaculate—if fake—British accent. “How nice to hear from you again. I always like returning customers, even if they do take several years to come back. Carl,” he added in a louder voice, “do as the man says. He’s not given to exaggerating. And please learn to be a little more discreet.”

Bolan glanced over his shoulder. Through the open patio door he could see a man in a floral shirt and shorts lower his gun with a sour glance at the soldier. Bolan allowed himself a small grin. Nothing wrong with his peripheral vision.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Yates,” Bolan said. “Not many men would have noticed him there.”

“It only takes one, dear boy,” Yates said, languidly rising from his chair and turning to face the soldier. “You’ve worn well, I’ll give you that. Better than I have. Better than anyone in our business has a right to.”

“You’re still alive,” Bolan countered. “That’s all that counts. And you’re still pretending to be English.”

“I am English. At least, my father was. I might have been born in Chicago, but my blood is that of the aristocracy, not the Mafia.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Bolan shrugged. “This is a pool party, is it?” he added, gesturing toward the girls.

“My daughter. Her mother was my maid. I think she’s back in Mexico now, though I really don’t care. I like her friends to come over.”

“That’s sweet,” Bolan said heavily. “Now, if you don’t mind, much as I’d like to chew the fat, I’m here to do business.”

“Of course.” Yates gestured toward the house. Leaving the girls to continue splashing around, seemingly oblivious to the men’s activities, Bolan went in through the patio doors.

Inside, the house was richly furnished in whites and creams, with splashes of purple from the drapes, rugs and cushions. It had a feminine touch.

“Carl, stop looking so pissed off and let Mr. Cooper through. He was always a good customer,” Yates said in an almost prissy tone. From the way Carl deferred to him, with a barely concealed petulance, Bolan wondered how the hell the faux Englishman had ever managed to conceive a daughter.

“He doesn’t look much like a Carl,” Bolan remarked as they descended the stairs hidden by inset shelves. The walls were decorated with hangings depicting historical battles, and as they reached the basement he could see that the heavy oak desk and cases of weapons were more in keeping with the man as he knew him than the decor upstairs. A plasma-screen TV and a laptop were the only signs of the twenty-first century on display. A glass-fronted bookcase contained a large number of old books in lurid dust jackets.

“He isn’t. That’s just my little conceit. I call him Carl Petersen, just as I call myself Dornford Yates. The IRS call both of us something else completely. Or at least they would if they could find us.”

“Touching, I’m sure. But that’s none of my concern.”

“Don’t mind me, I just like to keep the personal touch,” Yates murmured, leading Bolan through an aperture into the three connected rooms that housed the illegal ordnance that had paid for Yates’s luxury.

Two things came to Bolan’s mind as he followed. The first was that the supposed “personal touch” was an intriguing ruse. Yates was in a position to extract secrets from his customers that would no doubt be useful as leverage, or playing one buyer against the other. The second was more practical: Florida was one of the most waterlogged states in America. Although many richer homes had panic rooms and bunkers, shoring up a basement complex this large must have been expensive and disruptive. To do this unremarked spoke of Yates’s ability to snake out tentacles of influence. Another time, and Bolan would maybe have to take him out of the game. But not now. There was other work to be done.

Bolan filled two duffel bags with grenades and plastic explosives, a Steyr and ammunition, a micro-Uzi with spare clips and an HK with the same. He had to balance the need for firepower with the need for speed and moving light. As he left the house with the bags, Carl shadowed him, to make sure he did so without delay. Bolan cast an eye toward the girls in the pool and wondered if they had any idea how their friend’s father paid for all this—and whether they would even care if they did know.

Carl watched the soldier get into the sedan and pull out. Bolan could see him in his rearview mirror as he turned off the quiet suburban street, and he felt a prickle at the back of his neck. Instinct was an inexact science, but it had kept him alive long enough for him not to ignore it.

* * *

AS THE SEDAN moved out of sight, Carl went into the backyard, closing the gate behind him. He called out to the girls to make sure they kept it shut, before moving back through the house and down to the basement. Yates was seated at his desk, staring into space.

“I don’t like him,” Carl said without preamble.

“We don’t have to like them, we just have to like their money,” Yates replied. “Frankly, I don’t like any of them. But you’re right about Cooper. Terrible name, obviously made up by some desk monkey with no imagination. No man who was completely in the fold would ever need to use a dealer like myself to supply his needs. However, someone who was working in such deep cover that they didn’t officially exist...”

“If he’s here to cause trouble, then chances are it’s going to be with your customers,” Carl said.

“Indeed,” Yates said drily as he reached for the phone. “I don’t mind setting them against each other if it makes me a profit, but someone like Cooper is not going to give me that kind of pleasure. If he’s a government man of any stripe, then I think I may have a shrewd suspicion of where he’s headed.” As he spoke, he punched in a number.

“Ah, Ricke,” he purred into the mouthpiece, “I think I have something that might be of interest to you.... No, no, Duane hasn’t been causing any problems.... I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, but I think you should be aware of a few facts that have come to my attention....”

* * *

BOLAN TOOK A COUPLE hours to get away from the Miami metropolitan area and out into the county that was his destination. Once he crossed the border, he left the highways and took the smaller roads that led him to Griffintown. By the time he drove down the main drag it was dusk, and some of the larger stores were shut. The smaller mom-and-pop operations were still open, as were the diners and coffee shops. There was no mall on the outskirts of this town, so the streets were still busy. It looked idyllic.

At one end of the community was the small industrial park that housed the Midnight Examiner’s printing plant and editorial offices. Six stories tall, the building dwarfed everything else in town. In the evening light, it wasn’t too fanciful to see how the town was dominated by the tabloid and its owners. How much they knew about the secretive cult on their stoop was something Bolan wanted to probe, if possible, without alerting an eager staff to a potential story.

Right now, he needed a hotel, a shower and a chance to study the rest of the intel Kurtzman had sent him, before getting some rest and checking out the area around Eveland.

He found a quiet hotel with a white-painted wooden facade, a terrace and a swing in the front yard. Inside, the owners had gone for the colonial look. A man who appeared to be the same age as the dead security guard, Myres, signed Bolan in. The ex-soldier and sheriff’s officer should have been doing a job like this, not peddling his waning skills and waiting to be taken down. There was a lesson here, if Bolan cared to pay attention.

He was shown to his room, then thanked the proprietor, ordered a meal and took a shower. Over steak, Bolan studied the maps and topographic reliefs he’d downloaded. He had a fair idea of what to expect.

But there was nothing like the real thing.


Chapter 4 (#ulink_d11d7228-346a-5417-9a36-c7d1068df61b)

Bolan left the hotel at sunrise. As this was a soft probe, he dressed in casual clothes rather than his blacksuit, although he wore combat boots for ease of movement on what might prove to be treacherous terrain. He had on a dark T-shirt and pants, with a loose jacket under which he carried the HK, plus spare magazines in his pants’ pockets. The TEKNA knife was sheathed at the small of his back. In one of the duffel bags—the one not safely hidden with the rest of his ordnance back in his room—he carried the surveillance equipment, audio and visual, he’d picked up in Miami. He didn’t foresee any real dangers at this stage, since he wasn’t expected, as far as he was aware. Nonetheless, caution had to be balanced with traveling light and fast.

As he drove the sedan through Griffintown he saw very few signs of life—just a couple delivery trucks and a few people on their way to an early start at work. The monolith of the MidnightExaminer building loomed dark and brooding over the town.

Bolan was no reader of tabloids, but it did strike him as strange that the Seven Stars had never been mentioned in the pages of the Midnight Examiner—at least, not according to the background intel on the group he had asked Stony Man to collate for him. To have a loopy pseudo-religious cult in your backyard would, he assumed, have been perfect for the tabloid’s agenda. It could be worth his while to find out if there was a reason. Anything that might stand in the way of his mission was worth a few minutes’ detour. But right now, there were more pressing matters.

The road before him was empty. Lush, tropical vegetation and low-lying trees hung over the edges of the black ribbon of asphalt, threatening to take it back and absorb it into the swamps and rich loam that lay beyond.

He traveled on for several miles until his GPS told him he was approaching the old service road that cut through to the derelict amusement park. He scanned the sides of the highway for a spot where he could pull over and take the sedan into some kind of cover.

About five hundred yards from the service road, he noticed a semicircular patch of bare earth, likely formed by vehicles repeatedly cutting into the vegetation. Bolan figured it was likely to have been the sheriff’s transport resting up or lying in wait for traffic violations. He might as well take advantage; he didn’t intend to be long, and even if he encountered law enforcement because of this incursion, he could make use of the situation for further intel.

After pulling as far in as possible to shield the sedan from casual view, Bolan got out and shouldered the duffel bag, then took his bearings and headed into the overgrown flora that bordered the blacktop. He would probably be safe in that spot for a while, as it was still early and he had seen no traffic since leaving town. Evidently they were not believers in rising early in these parts.

The ground was soft, spongy with every step, and the roots and vines threatened to entangle his feet. There was no path, and he had to pick his way around tree trunks and thick brush. He could hear the scurrying of small animals as his approach scared them, the distant splashes as they ran through pools of water and mud in their bid to escape. Leaves in the canopy rustled as his progress disturbed birds nesting above his head. The constant background rattle and hum of insects made it hard for him to isolate any sounds that would indicate another human presence. If the senator’s daughter was being kept captive against her will, then it was an outside possibility that the cult would have defensive patrols around their base. Come to that, given the nature of the cult, it was possible they would do so anyway. Their beliefs would incline them to paranoia.

Despite the early hour, the sun already bore down and the heat pulled humid puffs of steam from the soil. He could feel sweat start to prickle on his scalp and the small of his back.

Bolan pressed on, zigzagging as the vegetation dictated. He advanced half a mile through the dense undergrowth before he hit a sparser, more barren stretch. Through the filigree of leaves on bushes that sprouted along its length he could see the gap where the service road cut through the growth, leading to the old amusement park. The ground here was sodden, and it sucked at his boots. Having to almost pull his foot free with each step slowed him down, and he sought a slightly firmer footing. The muck explained why there was less growth along this edge, and also why the service road had been built up, to add a firmer base.

Cursing softly to himself, he moved back into the denser, harder-to-negotiate undergrowth. The road and the stretch running parallel to it would leave him too exposed, too close to the park entrance.

Circling out so he would reach Eveland’s perimeter a good distance from the entrance, he stopped suddenly, senses quivering. Lurking beneath the sounds of the small animals and birds there was something else, something rhythmic and barely discernible. He was sure it was regular footfalls, now approaching him. He located the sound as coming from his right and about three hundred yards away. He was caught between what he must assume was an oncoming enemy and the edge of the park.

Bolan moved slowly forward, angling away from the footsteps. He kept low, using the bushes for cover. As the footfalls grew closer, he realized that there was more than one set. The rhythm was out of sync, an effect created by chance, and revealing that there were two people, one in pursuit of the other. Judging from the lack of urgency, he presumed that whoever was being tracked was unaware that he had someone on his tail.

Bolan drew back into the plentiful cover, unsheathing the TEKNA. The less sound he made, the better.

He waited only a few moments before the first footsteps were close enough for their maker to be revealed by the parting of the undergrowth: a woman, unarmed, with a rucksack on her shoulder. She was splattered with mud and looked far from happy. She was wearing shorts, and one leg showed a number of scrapes and cuts, presumably from a fall, but not deep enough to make her limp.

It wasn’t Elena Anders. For a moment, Bolan wondered if he’d struck it lucky, but a second look quashed that hope. Whoever this woman was, however, one thing was certain: the Seven Stars didn’t like her snooping around. She yelled in fright a fraction of a second before the tree in front of her was splintered and pulped by a heavy-duty shell. The deadened cough of the rifle told the soldier that the tracker had a clear sight of the woman, but was maybe not the best shot. Good. That gave him a chance to save her—whoever she was—and to halt her pursuer.

The woman was flat on the ground, sobbing and paralyzed with fear. The undergrowth around her kept her shielded to an extent. For the moment, her assailant likely couldn’t see her.

Problem was, Bolan couldn’t see him, either. Or hear him. The soldier scanned the thick covering before him, but detected no movement. He needed to get the woman out of the line of fire and draw the shooter into the open.

He slipped the TEKNA back into its sheath and pulled the HK from its holster, setting it to single shot and staring into the foliage. From the damage on the tree, he could narrow down the area the bullet had come from. More than one shot would attract undue attention from the amusement park occupants. The shooter had a rifle, and a three-shot burst would betray another presence. Bolan needed to place this as close as he could estimate....

The woman yelped in fear again as he loosed a shot. It crashed through the undergrowth and took a chunk out of a tree. There was no sound to betray the presence of the gunman, and for a moment Bolan thought the ploy had failed. But then a shadowy figure stepped out of cover and shot again, this time in the soldier’s direction. Bolan stood firm, knowing that he was hidden and that the rifleman was firing blindly. The shot smashed through the branches above him, high and wide. He stood his ground, keeping out of view while he took a sighting. Now he knew where he was firing.

He sent another single shot into the shadows, where his quarry had retreated. The woman remained where she was, crying gently and muttering to herself between sobs.

Bolan watched intently as the round disappeared into the undergrowth. There was little indication of whether or not it had struck home. He waited, listening for any signs of movement. The woman was starting to crawl across the ground. If she got to her feet she would become a target again, and that was the last thing Bolan wanted.

Who was she? If he could get her away from here, she might be able to share some intel on the cult.

To his right, Bolan noticed a ripple in the bushes. The last shot had not taken his man, but had been close enough to make him change positions. He was obviously trying to get a better view of the area where Bolan was secreted, but this brought the gunman closer to the woman’s position—too close for the soldier to risk it.

He slipped the HK back into the holster and palmed the TEKNA. Picking his way through the undergrowth, he ran parallel to the path of his intended target, who was easily traceable by the rippling trail he left in his wake. Bolan, on the other hand, was able to move silently without betraying his position. He crossed in front of his prey so that he could circle around and take him from the opposite side, where he would least expect an attack.

In position, Bolan waited for the man to blunder past him. He crashed through the undergrowth within a few yards of where Bolan stood. The shooter was young, no older than his early twenties, and appeared nervous, his eyes staring wildly and his mouth clenched in a rictus of fear. He held the rifle downward, but both hands gripped it tightly enough to make the skin whiten at the knuckles. He was hyped up, and the slightest provocation could make him fire wildly.

The soldier didn’t want stray shells flying around—not with the woman so close to them.

He let the man pass, and then slipped into his wake. Bolan took two steps to catch up, then snaked one arm around the man’s throat, pulling him backward, while the other arm punched up, driving the knife into the shooter’s kidneys. Bolan’s tight squeeze on his throat strangled any cry for help, or of pain. He twisted the knife before pulling it out and stabbing the man again, this time slipping the TEKNA under the ribs and angling up. He felt the man slump against him, and braced himself for the full deadweight. He extracted the knife and stepped away, letting the enemy fall to the dirt, his eyes staring sightlessly, blood bubbling from his mouth.

Bolan took the rifle from the dead man and slung it over his shoulder. He wiped the TEKNA on the guy’s shirt and sheathed it before taking stock of his surroundings.

There was no sign that anyone else had been patrolling the swamp with the rifleman. The only sounds Bolan could pick out, other than wildlife, were the sobbing and muttering of the woman.

He needed to find out who she was and what had brought her here. But first it was imperative that they get back on the road. There was no knowing how long it would be before the dead man was missed, and Bolan intended to be a long way from here when anyone from the Seven Stars came looking.





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