Doomsday Disciples te-49

by Don Pendleton

  Doomsday Disciples

  ( The Executioner - 49 )

  Don Pendleton

  Using the American tradition of freedom of religion as a smoke screen, a cultist group had gone mad in the streets of San Francisco. People were being slaughtered in the name of a bizarre new sacrilege, The Universal Devotees. Killings were random, senseless...

  Mack Bolan quickly identified the devil incarnate — Nguyen Van Minh, a stateless Asian refugee who had mastered mind-control on a massive scale.

  Bolan smelled KGB. Evidence grew that the killer creed was a Soviet weapon for wholesale butchery. When a senators lovely young daughter was sucked into its ranks, The Executioner launched the one deadly brand of combat — firestorms of glory that scorch yet revive the earth — that could crush Minhs blasphemy at its accursed heart.

  Don Pendleton

  Doomsday Disciples

  The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.

  Joseph Conrad

  Men never do evil so completely and so cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.

  Pascal

  It is not up to me to judge a man's religion. I leave that to the Universe. But when religion is perverted, twisted by the savages, it's time for man to give the gods a hand.

  Mack Bolan, The Executioner (from his journal)

  Prologue

  Mack Bolan never had the time to adopt an organized religion. The son of church-going parents, as a youth he drifted from the rituals and trappings of the faith and sought a universal truth in his own place and time. He saw enough bigotry and persecution in his travels to recognize that demagogues habitually use religion as a cloak for their fanaticism. The cross inverted was a bloody sword, and he knew that holy wars were often the most vicious and unholy.

  Not that Bolan was an atheist — far from it. He believed devoutly in the concept of Good and Evil battling for the hearts and minds of men. From adolescence he was a volunteer combatant in that ageless war, striking when and where he could against the cannibals and savages. Bolan was his brother's keeper, endlessly at war, offering his future as a sacrifice to the common, universal Good.

  And in that sense, he was a deeply religious man. The holy warrior, standing guard on a grim frontier.

  As a military strategist, he recognized the role of organized religion in the history of human conflict.

  From the earliest Crusades to the ongoing conflict in Ireland and the Middle East, God and doctrines have provided motivation for the massacre of countless millions. No cause ever rallied men to arms with such predictable efficiency as a call to strike against the infidel, the unbeliever.

  America has seen her share of doctrinal dissension. The Founding Fathers were refugees of persecution — Catholics in Maryland, Quakers in Pennsylvania, Puritans in Massachusetts — building a sanctuary for their own unorthodox beliefs. Some who sought a new world of tolerance would launch inquisitions of their own, but in the end they were all Americans, united in the pursuit of freedom. Together they forged a Bill of Rights, beginning with a guarantee of liberality, the fundamental right to worship, to believe, without fear of government harassment.

  Along the way, there were some who willfully mistook their freedom for a kind of license. Bigots and borderline fanatics, celebrity saviors with a keener eye for profits than prophecy, the Constitution sheltered all of them.

  There is a line that divides holy men and harmless cranks from other, more sinister practitioners. When the mask of worship crumbles to reveal corruption, when minds and lives are twisted and manipulated, primal laws of preservation and survival supersede the Bill of Rights.

  Mack Bolan was a master at survival, dedicated to protecting and preserving Man the Builder. He carried the cleansing fire to Asia in his youth and brought it back home to purge another band of savages. That fire consumed his old identity and he rose from the ashes as "Colonel John Phoenix," then embarked on another bloody mile of War Everlasting.

  Bolan knew there were limits to a single warrior's capabilities. He also knew a fighting man could lose a battle by concentrating on his limitations. Defeatism had no place in his personal philosophy.

  War was the game; survival was the game's real goal. The Executioner was staying hard, staying large.

  1

  North of San Francisco, the fog rolls in at night like silent smoke across the water, rising from the bay and crawling inland. It devours everything, muffling sounds and making simple movements a ghostly dance. The chill it carries creeps inside a man, penetrating flesh and bone, fastening upon the soul.

  The fog is neutral, unfeeling, but men invest it with the qualities of friend or foe. To police and firefighters, motorists and airline pilots, the mist is an enemy, bothersome at best, a potential killer. To others, men and women who transact their lives in darkness, away from prying eyes, it can be a trusted ally.

  The fog was friendly to Mack Bolan. He wore it like a cloak and let it shelter him. Secrecy was everything, and the canny warrior thanked the universe for any helping hand.

  He was counting on the famous San Francisco fog, knowing the mission couldn't wan, and this time the cards fell his way. Weather did not make the penetration simple, but it shaved the odds a little, made the risk acceptable.

  Bolan reached a six-foot-high retaining wall and paused, resting his back against the cool stone surface. Daytime reconnaissance had showed him the wall completely circled a thirty-acre estate. The wall ensured privacy, but posed little difficulty for determined infiltrators; he could scale it easily.

  Bolan had skinned into his black night-fighting outfit away from the scene, donning it in the privacy of the night. He had strapped on the web belts, hooking the holster of the lethal AutoMag onto his right side. A shoulder holster for the Beretta was next.

  The AutoMag made a heavy weight when he slid it into the leather hanging on his hip. A familiar, comforting weight for Colonel Hard.

  Yeah, it was a big gun. Too big for most shooters to carry. Too much weight. Too much recoil.

  But for Mack Bolan it was an appropriate weapon. It took a man like him to tame the big silver gun and adopt it as his head weapon.

  There was no other automatic handgun in the world like the late model, series C, .44 AutoMag.

  With even the short (for the AutoMag) 6-1/2" barrel, it was 11-1/2" in length. Unloaded, it weighed almost 4 pounds. It was constructed of stainless steel, reinforced at crucial points with titanium steel.

  Seven fat .44 Magnums rode in the magazine. With another sitting in the chamber, eight powerful brain-busters simmered within the big guy's grasp.

  Cartridges were so powerful that the big silver beauty required a rotary bolt with six locking lugs to contain the enormous explosive internal gas pressures generated when the shootist squeezed the trigger.

  Like a rifle? It was as close to a rifle as any handgun could be. And adjustable rear sight made it as accurate as a bolt-action shoulder arm.

  The cartridges were in fact cut down from 7.62 NATO brass cases and re-necked for a .44 slug. The bullet that Bolan preferred was a heavy 240-grain boattail that could tear through the solid metal of an automobile engine block.

  Sure, it was a big gun. It was special. In the same way that Mack Samuel Bolan, the Executioner, now known as John Macklin Phoenix, was special. One of a kind.

  This was a handgun designed for one purpose only: to take down the largest, toughest, most ferocious big game in the world.

  And in Bolan's world view, the largest, toughest, most dangerous big game was not wild animals.

  Canvas pouches at his waist carried extra magazines for both handguns, and the slit pockets of his tight-fittin
g blacksuit concealed the usual strangling gear, stilettos, other tools of the trade. Hands and face were blackened with combat cosmetics.

  Satisfied, he had slipped on the TH70 Nitefinder goggles, moving the rubber frames into place, adjusting the headband for comfort. Instantly the darkness lifted, brightening into crimson-tinged twilight. Around him, the rolling countryside became an eerie Martian landscape; the drifting fog reminded him of blood flowing into murky water.

  Bolan took the wall in one fluid motion, landing in a crouch. His every sense was alert, probing the night, seeking evidence of enemy activity. Despite the seeming absence of security precautions, he took nothing for granted. He had not survived in his profession by taking chances.

  There was something — a muffled sound, the suggestion of movement — at the farthest edge of sight. Bolan froze, eyes narrowing behind the Nitefinder lenses, scouring the darkness. His right hand fastened on the holstered Brigadier, chosen now for silence.

  The movement was repeated, accompanied by muted sound. Voices. He saw a pair of human shapes drifting in and out of focus in the fog. Two sentries, making their rounds together, were coming his way.

  Bolan moved, trusting the fog and darkness as he left the roving sentinels behind, and merged with a stand of trees. He waited there and watched them pass by at twenty feet, close enough to take them both with the Beretta. For Belle, too, was a magnificent piece, dead right for the right occasion.

  The warrior let them go.

  His mission was a soft probe and penetration, strictly on the safe side. Any premature exposure, any contact with the enemy could jeopardize his mission — and his life.

  The Executioner was seeking information, confirmation. The weapons he carried were a form of life insurance. If his planning was successful, they would not be needed.

  The big man in black was optimistic, but he was also realistic. He knew the kind of "accidents" that could occur, turning his soft probe deadly hard within the space of a heartbeat. And he was ready. At least as ready as a soldier living on the edge could ever be.

  The sentries disappeared, and Bolan moved swiftly in the opposite direction. His destination was the manor house, set well back from the highway in the center of the grounds. Allowing for the fog and possibility of other sentries, he marked a mental ETA at ten minutes, maximum. The numbers were falling, and he had no time to waste.

  Bolan made it in eight, approaching the house from its southern flank.

  The house was a massive, rambling structure, vaguely Victorian in style. Most of the lights were out, darkness and fog conspiring to impart a haunted look. Bolan half expected swooping bats and howling wolves to make the scene complete.

  He knew the layout of the house from briefings and a tour of the floor plans. Living quarters upstairs and on the side away from him, shrouded in the mist; kitchen and dining room, conference rooms and library on the ground floor front and back.

  His destination was the second floor, a balcony supported by a wrought-iron trellis. Broad French doors shielded a suite of executive offices.

  A command post and nerve center — one that Bolan had traveled more than two thousand miles to penetrate.

  He scanned the grounds around the house, seeking lookouts, finding none. A last glance for caution's sake, then he made his move, breaking for the house at a dead run and sliding into shadow against the southern wall. Again he waited for alarms that never sounded, warning shouts that never came.

  He would have to scale the trellis. It would take his weight, and he could not afford the noisy luxury of grappling hooks and climbing gear. He did not intend to wake the sleeping house.

  Bolan reached the trellis. The vines scratched his face and hands, crackling beneath him as he climbed. If a sentry passed below him and heard the sound of his ascent, he was finished. Dangling on the trellis like a giant insect, there was little he could do to guard his flank.

  Except to get the hell off there and be about his business.

  Bolan gained the balcony and paused again, letting pulse and respiration stabilize. Catlike, he approached the giant French doors, ears straining to detect any sound of movement from within, any warning of an ambush.

  Nothing.

  He was on the numbers now, every heartbeat ticking off the odds against a safe and silent penetration. Every second wasted increased the danger of discovery.

  Crouching, he withdrew a tiny limpet bug from a pocket of his skinsuit. No larger than a shirt button, the disk was backed with a powerful adhesive; fingertip pressure secured it in a corner of the French doors, out of sight unless the occupants were searching for it. The glass would act as an amplifier for the microphone, and Bolan would possess a one-way source of information from the inner sanctum of his target.

  But there was more to accomplish yet.

  Bending close, he examined the locking mechanism of the windows. No one expected callers on the second floor, and it was all interior, but maybe...

  He selected a flexible jimmy, pausing with the tool in hand, eyes and fingers searching for the burglar alarm. There wasn't one, and he said a silent prayer of thanks for the overconfidence of enemies.

  Bolan had his jimmy probing for the lock when a door banged open somewhere down below him. He froze, ears picking up the sound of scuffling feet and angry voices.

  One of the voices sounded female.

  The warrior scrubbed his mission in an instant, moving to protect his flank. As he reached the railing, an engine growled to life behind the house, revving and drawing closer.

  The Nitefinders picked out a pair of figures grappling in the fog below. The larger one, a man, had his hands full, trying to control the woman struggling in his grasp. As Bolan watched, she kicked him in the shin and almost broke away before the heavy struck her with a stunning backhand.

  The lady folded, whimpering, and the man had to work just to keep her on her feet. A Caddy pulled up, briefly framing them in the headlights, and then the driver scrambled around to help his partner with the woman.

  Overhead, the Executioner had seen enough. His Nitefinders and the momentary flash of light told him everything he needed to know.

  He recognized the woman as his secondary target. He knew he could not allow the men to carry her away.

  Bolan was all out of numbers now. Split seconds separated recognition from decision, thought from action.

  The soft probe was going hard, in spite of everything.

  Bolan launched himself from the balcony, plummeting through space. He landed on the Caddy's roof, rebounding with a loud metallic bang, and kept on going, rolling out of sight behind the car.

  The hardmen were stunned by his arrival, but they recovered quickly. Each of them had a gun in hand, the taller man clutching the woman like a shield. His partner ran around the Caddy's nose, pistol raised and probing at the foggy darkness, seeking targets.

  Bolan left him to it, circling behind the car, keeping ahead of the hunter. Through his goggles he picked out the woman and her captor, huddled close together in the night.

  It was a risky shot, certainly, but Bolan didn't have the time for second-guessing. The Beretta in his fist was sliding up and out to full extension, keen eyes making target acquisition through the Nitefinders even as he stroked the trigger.

  The Belle coughed once, its quiet voice further muffled by the fog. The target staggered, reeling, head snapping back with the impact of a 9mm mangler in the face. Blood spattered over corpse and captive, showing up black in the vision field of Bolan's goggles.

  And the woman, suddenly deprived of the supporting arm around her waist, tumbled to the ground. Bolan left her there, twisting in his crouch to face danger from another quarter.

  The other gunner heard his partner drop, and he finished his circuit of the Caddy in a sprint. He was almost on top of Bolan when the man in black announced his presence, squeezing off another silent round to meet the charging enemy.

  The little guy died knowing he had been suckered. Bolan read the fury a
nd frustration on his face before the bullet wiped it all away and punched him backward in a lifeless sprawl. He was still twitching with the aftershocks of violent death when Bolan turned to see about the woman.

  She was on her hands and knees when Bolan reached her. Still groggy from the punch she had absorbed, she was fading in and out as he helped her to her feet and steadied her against the car. A thread of scarlet at the corner of her mouth was the only outward sign of injury.

  Bolan's mind was racing, weighing options. His soft withdrawal, the waiting rental car — all his plans were canceled, shot to hell. There was only one escape remaining, and a risky one at that.

  She resisted when he tried to get her in the car, fighting with the little strength she had left. Time was of the essence, and he seized her by the shoulders, shook her roughly, voice lashing out at her in the deathly stillness.

  "Stop it, Amy! I'm a friend. We have to leave right now."

  Something reached her, perhaps a combination of the message and her name. She let him put her in the Caddy and sat with eyes lowered, saying nothing, as he closed the door.

  Bolan felt her staring at him as he slid behind the wheel, but there was no time for introductions. His mind was on priorities, the grim mechanics of survival.

  He was playing by instinct, making it up as he went along, and the odds were all against him now. Reconnaissance showed a checkpoint at the only gate, manned around the clock. Unless the enemy was totally inept, the checkpoint guards would have been alerted to expect a car at any moment.

  Fair enough. The Executioner would give them one.

  And if they tried to stop him — well, he would deal with that problem when he came to it.

  Bolan cut the headlights, dropping the Caddy into gear. A light came on inside the house, followed by another and another, winking at him in the rearview mirror. He pressed the accelerator down and left them all behind, running sleek and silent through the mist.