HUMAN OBSTACLE
Sent to Brazil to take down one of the country’s most powerful drug lords, Mack Bolan stumbles across two U.S. missionaries taken prisoner by the cartel. But while attempting to extract them to safety, Bolan learns that not everyone wants to be rescued. As the jungle becomes a battlefield, the pair soon slips out of his grasp. They’re determined to continue their religious work, and the rain forest’s tangled depths can cover up even the most amateur of trails.
Suddenly, Bolan is caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse—and the cartel soldiers are rapidly closing in on their prey. With his reluctant charges on the run and a cocaine shipment already en route, Bolan is torn between destroying the trafficker’s thriving business, and saving American lives. Forget plan B. The Executioner must rely on improvisation alone to complete this near-impossible mission—or die trying.
Tick-tock
Bolan had no time to search for the preacher, rescue him a second time, then double back to meet with Grimaldi. He’d have to scrub the airlift yet again. He wasn’t sure if Abner rated any further effort, but that wasn’t Bolan’s call. He still felt duty-bound to try at least once more. And after that?
Hell, you could only save a man so many times if he was bent on suicide. Beyond a certain point, it was both futile and ridiculous.
The trail was easy to follow, Braga’s people making no attempt to hide their tracks. They had their prize and would be hurrying back home to show it off.
Unless the Executioner could stop them first.
MACK BOLAN
The Executioner
#349 Firestorm
#350 Volatile Agent
#351 Hell Night
#352 Killing Trade
#353 Black Death Reprise
#354 Ambush Force
#355 Outback Assault
#356 Defense Breach
#357 Extreme Justice
#358 Blood Toll
#359 Desperate Passage
#360 Mission to Burma
#361 Final Resort
#362 Patriot Acts
#363 Face of Terror
#364 Hostile Odds
#365 Collision Course
#366 Pele’s Fire
#367 Loose Cannon
#368 Crisis Nation
#369 Dangerous Tides
#370 Dark Alliance
#371 Fire Zone
#372 Lethal Compound
#373 Code of Honor
#374 System Corruption
#375 Salvador Strike
#376 Frontier Fury
#377 Desperate Cargo
#378 Death Run
#379 Deep Recon
#380 Silent Threat
#381 Killing Ground
#382 Threat Factor
#383 Raw Fury
#384 Cartel Clash
#385 Recovery Force
#386 Crucial Intercept
#387 Powder Burn
#388 Final Coup
#389 Deadly Command
#390 Toxic Terrain
#391 Enemy Agents
#392 Shadow Hunt
#393 Stand Down
#394 Trial by Fire
#395 Hazard Zone
#396 Fatal Combat
#397 Damage Radius
#398 Battle Cry
#399 Nuclear Storm
#400 Blind Justice
#401 Jungle Hunt
#402 Rebel Trade
#403 Line of Honor
#404 Final Judgment
#405 Lethal Diversion
#406 Survival Mission
#407 Throw Down
#408 Border Offensive
#409 Blood Vendetta
#410 Hostile Force
#411 Cold Fusion
#412 Night’s Reckoning
#413 Double Cross
#414 Prison Code
#415 Ivory Wave
#416 Extraction
#417 Rogue Assault
#418 Viral Siege
#419 Sleeping Dragons
#420 Rebel Blast
#421 Hard Targets
#422 Nigeria Meltdown
#423 Breakout
#424 Amazon Impunity
Amazon Impunity
RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter by evicting them.
—Ambrose Bierce,
The Devil’s Dictionary
Retribution is my business, not revenge. The predators I hunt have made themselves fair game. I’m not their judge or jury; I’m their executioner.
—Mack Bolan
The
Legend
Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.
But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.
Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.
He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.
So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a com-mand center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—wagedrelentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.
But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the handsof the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties withEstablishment 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
Epilogue
Prologue
State of Mato Grosso, Brazil
“How much farther now?” Artur da Rochas asked.
“You’ll know when we get there,” Luiz Aranha said.
“Walking all this way because some wretched preacher wants to save the Indians is stupid.”
“Why don’t you go back and tell that to o chefe?” Aranha suggested.
“What? And get my head cut off for nothing? Vai te fuder.”
“Watch yourself,” Aranha warned him. “You forget your place.”
“My place is back at camp, with my Lucélia,” said da Rochas, lightening the mood.
“Don’t bet that she’s waiting for you while you’re gone.”
“She loves me!”
“I’ve no doubt of that. And others, too.”
“You’re jealous,” said da Rochas, but he sounded worried.
Someone else was grumbling now, back in the ranks. Over his shoulder, Aranha snapped, “Shut your mouth!” He was sick of the complaints each time they went out on patrol. What else had these idiots
expected when they’d volunteered for duty in the Amazon? Some kind of luxury retreat?
No. Their job was tramping through the jungle on whatever mission was assigned to them. They dressed in sweaty camouflage fatigues, soaked through with rain no less than half a dozen times each day. They carried IMBEL MD-2 assault rifles, standard issue for the Brazilian army, chambered for 5.56 mm NATO rounds, plus a motley collection of handguns, hatchets, knives and other weapons of personal preference. All of them were hardened killers—some former military men—and still they whined like children when required to do a job.
That was the hitch with criminals, Luiz Aranha thought. No dedication. It was something that set him apart.
Or maybe not.
He didn’t relish the patrols either, but he had sense enough to keep his mouth shut, knowing that dissension in the ranks was bound to irritate o chefe and produce some dire results. If nothing else, tight lips ensured some measure of immunity.
As for their targets, nothing on earth could help them now. They had provoked o chefe’s wrath, and they were bound to suffer for it. Aranha had been ordered to bring them back alive. Slogging through the jungle, watching out for snakes along the way, he wondered how they would die for his master’s pleasure.
Whatever o chefe had in mind, it should be memorable. An example to his men and to outsiders who offended him.
A little bit of Hell on Earth.
Missão Misericórdia
MERCY MISSION—OR Missão Misericórdia, in the native Portuguese—was not found on any map of the Brazilian jungle. Truth be told, few souls beyond a radius of fifty miles were conscious of the small outpost’s existence. It was not affiliated with a major church, received no stipend from a lavish headquarters in the United States or Europe, and had never aired a single plea for help on radio or television. It was not forgotten by the outside world, so much as overlooked entirely.
The mission was a two-person operation with a shoestring budget, driven by the conviction that each person on the planet had an equal right to hear the word of God and find salvation through His grace. Its placement in the Mato Grosso had resulted from a challenge offered and accepted in a suburb of Miami, Florida, two years before.
You want to save the heathens, someone had demanded, you should try the Indians in South America. Not many of them are left, but it should satisfy your martyr complex.
Abner Cronin didn’t think he had a martyr complex, but he took the gibe to heart. He’d discussed it with his wife and had sympathized with her instinctive reservations, so they took it to the Lord and let Him settle the debate.
All systems were go—except for cash, supplies and anything resembling knowledge of the area.
They’d done their homework though and had picked a tribe—the Munduruku—that was verging on extinction after centuries of conflict with slavers, prospectors, rubber traders, loggers, petroleum wildcatters and the junta that had ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. Even today, incursions on the Mundurukus’ homeland continued to decimate the wildlife and the rain forest itself, forcing the tribe closer to the forbidding border of Bolivia.
Abner Cronin and his wife, Mercy, had given up their reasonably comfortable lives to serve God’s wretched and forgotten children in the wilderness. The mission was named in Mercy’s honor, both a serendipitous coincidence and Abner’s personal acknowledgment that Mercy’s sacrifice in leaving Florida was greater than his own. She’d hoped for children there, something approximating a normal life, but had surrendered all her modest dreams at his behest.
There were days—and many of them—when he thought she must regret that choice, but Mercy Cronin never failed to grace him with a smile, encourage him when he faltered or welcome their parishioners, who must have seemed as alien to her as any creature from a distant star. She’d dealt with serpents and malarial mosquitoes, ticks and leeches, spiders larger than a dinner plate, vampire bats and jaguars, not to mention all the forest’s other creeping vermin. They’d survived a brush with unfriendly villagers before they had even reached their final destination and had lost a pack mule to piranhas on the journey.
Am I a martyr yet? he wondered and almost smiled.
The usual contingent of Mundurukus had assembled for his Sunday sermon, twenty-five in all. Three men, five adolescent boys, the rest women and younger children. They were learning English slowly, as the Cronins had begun to learn the tribe’s language and sufficient Portuguese to bargain for supplies on monthly trips into Cáceres, on the Rio Paraguai. Communication was a work in progress, true enough, but they were making strides toward understanding. Moving closer every day to a successful meeting of the mind and soul.
His lesson for the day was drawn from John 3:16.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
If they could only master that, the rest would fall naturally into place.
Abner had welcomed everyone and was launching the discussion in his awkward, halting way, when Mercy suddenly appeared, a strained expression on her normally intrepid face. He recognized the look of trouble and was about to ask what the problem was, when rifle shots rang out and some members of his congregation toppled from their rough-hewn wooden benches.
Abner bolted from the pulpit to confront a mob of ten to fifteen men, armed and wearing paramilitary garb. Their leader was a man he recognized and feared, but Abner stood before him, rigid, while screaming survivors fled into the forest, leaving the dead and wounded in their wake.
The raiding party’s point man stopped within arm’s reach. Mercy was at Abner’s side now, lending strength as always.
“You were warned,” the gunman said. “You did not listen.”
“I have listened to my Lord,” Abner replied—then buckled, as the leader slashed his rifle’s butt into the missionary’s stomach.
Whispering a breathless prayer, Abner could not help thinking, maybe I’m a martyr, after all.
Chapter 1
State of Mato Grosso, Brazil
Viewed from an altitude of sixteen thousand feet, the treetops rushing past below resembled crowded garden shrubs. In reality the jungle giants loomed two hundred feet or more off the ground. A drop from that height was beyond extreme.
Which wouldn’t stop Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, from attempting it.
“Five minutes,” said his pilot, Jack Grimaldi, speaking through his oxygen mask.
Wearing his own O2 mask and giving Grimaldi a thumbs-up from the Cessna 182T’s open doorway, Bolan’s gaze fixed on the treescape below. It felt as if he could step out, drop briefly, then stroll across the treetops, just an amble over a manicured lawn. A glance at his altimeter would shatter that illusion, just as Bolan’s bones would shatter if he hit the forest canopy from the wrong angle.
The Cessna had been Grimaldi’s first and only choice for HALO jumping over the Mato Grosso. Its cruising speed was 164.5 miles per hour, powered by a single Lycoming O-540 six-cylinder engine. Unlike most private aircraft, the Cessna’s door opened upward—so it wouldn’t flap and slam on the jumper.
HALO. High Altitude, Low Opening, also known as a military free fall. Boiled down to basics, a HALO jumper hurls himself into space at altitudes ranging from fifteen-to thirty-five-thousand feet, deploying his parachute at the last feasible moment.
Bolan was dressed to drop, complete with a helmet and insulated jumpsuit, gloves and military free-fall boots, bailout oxygen and a Vigil 2 automatic activation device that would fire a small pyrotechnic charge to open his main chute when Bolan reached the target altitude of 2,800 feet above treetop level.
He was also dressed to kill, beginning with his choice of combat rifles: the ultrareliable, nearly indestructible Steyr AUG, chambered in 5.56 mm NATO, with a standard 1.5-power telescopic sight and a flash hider doub
ling as a launcher for rifle grenades. Bolan’s backup weapons included a Desert Eagle Mark VII semiauto pistol chambered in .44 Magnum; a SIG Sauer P226 Tactical Operations semiauto chambered in 9 mm Parabellum, with its extended muzzle threaded to accommodate suppressors; a classic Mark I trench knife and an all-purpose bolo knife for clearing vegetation.
Anticipating hang-ups in the forest canopy, Bolan carried a knife to cut the lines, and he wore a pair of Bucklite titanium climbing spurs strapped to his boots. His belt supported two military-standard canteens, while his Warfighter three-day assault pack—worn on front, against his thighs on bailout, to accommodate the backup parachute riding on his chest, the primary one on his back—contained MREs, a mess kit, first-aid kit, a sat phone, night-vision goggles, a GPS tracker, a Maglite tactical flashlight and sundry other items.
Beneath the insulated jumpsuit, which Bolan would abandon after landing, he was clad in fatigues stitched from insect-repellent fabric patterned in universal camouflage. Bolan had streaked his face with camouflage paint, as well. A longtime veteran of jungle fighting, he could merge with any landscape as required, achieving near invisibility.
But first he had to make that drop and reach the ground.
“One minute, now,” Grimaldi warned.
Bolan began to run the numbers. He was about to step out of an airplane and plummet through space at speeds approaching terminal velocity. After three-quarters of a minute in a free fall, his automatic activation device would deploy the main chute. If that failed, he still had the rip cord and a reserve chute strapped to his chest—assuming there was time to use it before he crashed into the treetops.
Terminal velocity, indeed, if anything went wrong.
Bolan would have to leap well clear of the Cessna to avoid a tail strike that would turn his free fall into a death drop. With his head down and arms against his sides, he’d be dropping like a bomb toward ground zero, then using his arms and legs to navigate until the main chute opened to decelerate his fall.
The chute itself was an AS33-Intruder model from AS Airborne Systems, which featured a nine-cell ram air canopy with antistall modifications to minimize injuries on touchdown.
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