Cyberthreat

A WALKING BOMB

Data terrorist Javier Octavios has wired his heart to a “data bomb” that, should he be killed, would decimate the security of some of the world’s most powerful countries, including the United States. Now it’s up to Mack Bolan to keep the man alive. No easy feat, as rival factions from North Korea, Russia, Iran, Octavios’s own group and even Octavios himself are attacking Bolan at every turn. With so many targets, one man shouldn’t nearly be enough to save Octavios...unless he’s The Executioner.

#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

#425 Patriot Strike

#426 Pirate Offensive

#427 Pacific Creed

#428 Desert Impact

#429 Arctic Kill

#430 Deadly Salvage

#431 Maximum Chaos

#432 Slayground

#433 Point Blank

#434 Savage Deadlock

#435 Dragon Key

#436 Perilous Cargo

#437 Assassin’s Tripwire

#438 The Cartel Hit

#439 Blood Rites

#440 Killpath

#441 Murder Island

#442 Syrian Rescue

#443 Uncut Terror

#444 Dark Savior

#445 Final Assault

#446 Kill Squad

#447 Missile Intercept

#448 Terrorist Dispatch

#449 Combat Machines

#450 Omega Cult

#451 Fatal Prescription

#452 Death List

#453 Rogue Elements

#454 Enemies Within

#455 Chicago Vendetta

#456 Thunder Down Under

#457 Dying Art

#458 Killing Kings

#459 Stealth Assassin

#460 Lethal Vengeance

#461 Cold Fury

#462 Cyberthreat

Cyberthreat

Don Pendleton’s

ISBN: 978-0-008-90615-3

Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Phil Elmore for his contribution to this work.

CYBERTHREAT

© 2020 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2017

by Worldwide Gold Eagle, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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The explosion drove gouts of dirt into the air.

The blast forced Bolan to roll down the berm and into the pit, toward his car. He struck the side of the vehicle, then lay in the dirt, his ears ringing.

Grenades. But from whom? The Russians were in no position for another assault. Where was the attack coming from?

He crawled back up the berm and spotted a team in the field, moving in from the right flank—North Koreans. The SSD had broken the cordon and tracked them down. He racked his brain, trying to figure out how they knew exactly where to find Octavios. The man had been given no opportunity to send a coded message or make a furtive telephone call. How was he tipping them off? And why?

The North Koreans had exhausted their grenades and were now shooting at him. The Executioner lay flat to minimize his target profile, then did a double take as a cherry-red Lamborghini roared up the road...

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

—Benjamin Franklin

I’ve never had much use for secrets. Men in power use secrets to hide. The truth is a bullet that shatters every mystery. The trick is figuring out where to point the gun.

—Mack Bolan

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Quotes

The Mack Bolan Legend

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

“Matthew Cooper,” Mack Bolan stated, providing one of his cover names.

“Wait here a moment, please.” The guard retreated into his booth and closed the Plexiglas window that separated him from the mechanized gate. Bolan could see the man conferring with someone on his intercom.

The big American resisted the temptation to drum his fingers on the steering wheel of his Chevy Caprice. He didn’t want to seem impatient. The man some knew as the Executioner instead waited calmly in the driver’s seat of his “for official use only” vehicle.

The car was neither as roomy as the old Caprice sedans that were its namesake, nor nearly as stylish. Bolan didn’t care. It had a powerful engine that had proved reliable in his drive from Upstate New York. The car had an added advantage, too: it had started life as an unmarked police car and still bore the dark blue base paint favored by the New York State Police. Other vehicles had given him a wide berth on his drive to Toronto.

The guard held up a finger and pointed to the intercom, letting Bolan know that his wait would soon be over. The Executioner nodded and managed what he hoped was a cheerful smile.

A person would never know from the look of this place that it was one of Canada’s most secret detention centers.

He took his secure smartphone from the pocket of his black leather jacket and called up the mission dossier. He was here to retrieve one Javier Octavios, a Greek national who had managed to create one hell of a lot of trouble on the world stage.

“He’s an odd one,” Hal Brognola had told Bolan back in Virginia. As well as being a high-level honcho in the Department of Justice, the big Fed was the director of the Sensitive Operations Group based in Virginia at a covert installation known as Stony Man Farm. The briefing had been a rushed affair at the Farm as preparations were made to ferry Bolan by helicopter to a location in New York where a suitable vehicle would be waiting for him. A weapons drop had been made at a secure facility outside Toronto owned by a Farm ally.

“Javier Octavios is the head of the notorious hacker group Codex Freedom. They’re data terrorists who specialize in finding and outing sensitive information.”

“I’ve heard,” Bolan had said, nodding. “They don’t care who they expose as long as the damage is extensive. Governments. Celebrities. Corporations. If it’s online, they can find it. The dirtier, the better.”

“Exactly,” Brognola agreed. “Octavios is currently in the Canadian equivalent of a covert detention facility in Toronto. He tried to apply for asylum at the Greek consulate, but the Greeks want no part of the mess he’s made. Octavios and Codex Freedom have made enemies all over the world. The Man himself is not particularly a fan.”

“The President can rest easy,” Bolan said. “I’ll make sure he gets here.”

“It won’t be that simple,” Brognola interjected. “Octavios is backed by a network of violent hackers who will stop at nothing to free him.”

“I think I can handle that.”

“These are not the computer geeks you’re picturing, Striker,” the big Fed stated, using Bolan’s Stony Man Farm code name. “These are radicalized data thieves. But they’re not your only worry. There are multiple government agencies that have vowed to kill him.”

“If that’s true,” Bolan said, “then how is he not dead? No slight against the Canadians.”

“Insurance. Javier Octavios has constructed a data bomb that will release to the internet classified data he has hacked from every major industrialized nation. The data would compromise top-secret security operations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Israel. We don’t know the full extent, but it’s likely Octavios also has the goods on the Russians, the North Koreans and maybe the Iranians. The well goes deep.”

“So they need to keep him alive to interrogate him about this data?”

“Worse,” Brognola said. “Octavios put a video online a few weeks ago. He’s wearing a heart monitor. If he dies, or if the monitor is removed, the device sends a wireless signal to the nearest Wi-Fi connection, or through its own transmitter, that will trigger the data dump. As you can imagine, some of the nations on whom Octavios has dirt want to keep him alive. Others are willing to take him out just to see what he’s managed to unearth about the others.”

“And the Canadians are just going to give him to us?”

“They’re not equipped to handle him,” Brognola told him. “And to be honest, I don’t think they want anything to do with him. Extradition has been expedited, so you won’t be hassled at the border. We’re sending you in under your Justice Department cover. I’ll make sure you have the appropriate updated credentials. We’re on the clock here, Striker. Octavios must not die until Aaron and his cyberteam can figure out how to neutralize this threat. Chances are good that various squads have already been dispatched to Toronto. That Canadian detention center is no match for a concentrated onslaught like that.”

“International assassins convention in Canada,” Bolan said.

“Something like that. Stop by the armory to list the weapons and equipment you’ll want waiting for you. You need to leave yesterday.”

Now, waiting at the gate of the detention facility, Bolan stifled a yawn. He hadn’t gotten any sleep since Brognola had dispatched him. He’d been on the move ever since.

Thumbing through the dossier, mindful of his environment as he did so, Bolan burned the faces it contained into his memory. The Farm had assembled files on the usual suspects then cross-indexed those with travel records and intelligence data. Barbara Price, Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, was fairly certain that Bolan faced at least two significant threats. Both the North Koreans and the Russians had operatives believed to be in the country.

The North Korean contingent was likely led by Choi Kwang Sik, a commander in the North Korean State Security Department, or SSD. A subordinate of his, Jang Mung-Jun, had been spotted in New York City two days ago.

There was also Dobry Mikhailov, a captain of the OMON—Otryad Mobilniy Osobogo Naznacheniya—Russia’s Special Purpose Mobile Unit. An offshoot of the SOBR, a special police branch of the National Guard of Russia, OMON troops were paramilitary personnel often tasked with controlling riots. Both Mikhailov and his known second-in-command, Egor Smyrnoi, had been located and subsequently lost by Canadian intelligence not seventy-two hours previously. There were sketchy reports that both the Russians and the North Koreans had originally entered the United States using the same airport.

Finally, the Farm had provided multiple photos and files on an attractive blonde named Sheila Hargrave and a man named Cyril Jackson. They were highly placed cell leaders in Codex Freedom—and Javier Octavios’s closest associates. The whereabouts of both was unknown, but chances were good Bolan would encounter them. They’d been looking to break Octavios out of custody so he could go to ground on his own terms.

The little Plexiglas door opened. “They’re ready for you, Agent Cooper,” the guard said. He pressed a button Bolan couldn’t see. The hydraulic gate opened.

The soldier nodded to the guard, put his Chevy in gear and guided the vehicle through the gate. There was a solid yellow line on the pavement, guiding him toward the only place visitors were authorized to go. That would be the building euphemistically termed the “welcome center” in his electronic dossier. It was here that prisoners were transferred under both physical security and electronic surveillance. That meant, in other words, that there would be armed guards, cameras and other automated security.

In theory, the facility was rated for maximum security, even for international terrorists. According to Barbara Price, the Greeks had been only too eager to give Octavios to CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, folks who in turn wanted the man off their soil completely. “Everyone involved knows how hot this potato is,” Price had told him.

He smiled at the thought. Barbara Price was one of the most beautiful women Bolan had known over the years. She was also incredibly smart and one hell of a mission controller. He looked forward to seeing her back at the Farm when this was over.

His Justice Department credentials got him past the first few levels of security without difficulty. He was given the choice to check his weapons or leave them—and his canvas war bag with its wide shoulder strap—locked in the trunk of the Chevy. He went with the latter. No weapons, save those wielded by Canadian security personnel, were permitted within the facility’s walls.

Finally, flanked by four Canadian operators wearing Modular Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment—MOLLE—and carrying heavily customized Colt C-8 rifles, the Canadian version of the M-4 carbine, Bolan was ushered into an interrogation room whose walls, floors, table and chairs were stark white. He waited as the Canadians brought the prisoner to him and sat him at the table.

One of the operators placed a paper shopping bag on the table, as well.

“I’ll take it from here,” Bolan stated.

“Sir,” the man who had brought the bag said, “we’ll be outside to escort you beyond the walls. Then he’s your responsibility.”

“Understood.”

The armed men filed out and closed the door. It sealed with a hiss that indicated the room was airtight.

Javier Octavios wore an orange prison jumpsuit. Ornate half-spectacles were perched on his nose and his salt-and-pepper hair was long, down to his shoulders. He wore a gray beard on a gaunt, lined face. Bolan placed his age at somewhere between fifty-five and sixty. The Farm’s dossier had not listed it because, officially, nobody knew the man’s date of birth. Even sitting, Bolan could tell Octavios was taller than average. His arms and legs were long and skinny, while his torso was barely as big around as Bolan’s legs. The man reminded the soldier of a stick insect.

Octavios sat crouched over the table, his head in his hands. When he spoke, his voice was a deep, rich baritone that belied his lanky frame.

“So,” he said, “I assume you’ll have to either choke me or break my neck. Unless you have managed to smuggle some sort of knife into the prison? I’d prefer not to look at you while you do.”

“I’m not here to kill you,” Bolan said. “I’m Special Agent Matthew Cooper, US Justice Department. My job is to escort you to a secure site in the United States.”

Octavios looked up at him. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. If I were here to kill you, you’d be dead.”

Octavios stared at him for a long moment. “You know,” he said, “I believe you.” He gestured with his hands, which were manacled, to the paper shopping bag. “I assumed that was for my head.”

“You’ve seen too many movies,” Bolan told him. He pushed the paper bag toward Octavios. “Civilian clothes. Jeans. A polo shirt. A windbreaker. Nothing that will draw attention. Put them on.”

“Uh—” Octavios held up his hands “—that’s going to be a bit of a problem.”

Bolan produced a universal handcuff key from his waistband, where he kept it clipped. The key was black, like his shirt, instruct-style gun belt and BDU pants. It blended completely and was nonmetallic. The guards hadn’t searched him for it, thanks to his Justice Department credentials. The soldier proceeded to unlock Octavios’s cuffs.

“Strange of them not to leave you a key,” the data terrorist said. “They’re usually so polite.”

“They probably assumed I was going to frog-march you out of here in your manacles and orange suit. But I’d prefer to keep a lower profile.”

“Touché.”

“Put on the clothes,” Bolan ordered.

“I don’t suppose you’ll turn around to preserve my modesty?”

“No.”

Octavios sighed and stood. He was at least six foot four, perhaps a bit taller. Stripping off his jumpsuit, he turned and Bolan eyed the device attached to his chest. Wires, which ran from a metal box about the size of a portable hard drive, were directly embedded in the man’s skin. The area around the contacts was red and inflamed.

“Those look infected,” Bolan observed.

“Somehow,” Octavios said, “I don’t think I’ll have time to die of blood poisoning before one of the international community’s assassins puts a bullet in me.”

“That’s why I’m here. To prevent that.”

“You’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical,” Octavios said, his Greek accent light but noticeable. “I mean no offense. But you are one man. What can one man do?”

“You’d be surprised,” Bolan told him.

They made their way through the facility’s security layers without incident. Back at his car, Bolan walked around the vehicle, bent to check the undercarriage and then popped the hood to check the engine. He was taking no chances that it had been tampered with.

“Satisfied?” Octavios asked.

“Almost.” Bolan popped the trunk and gestured for Octavios to look inside. The Greek expatriate shuffled to where Bolan stood, his gait uncertain.

The trunk was empty except for the Executioner’s war bag, which he removed and slung across his body.

“You have no spare tire?” Octavios asked.

“Under the panel,” Bolan said then shoved the man into the trunk.

“Wait!” Octavios sputtered. “What are you—?”

Bolan slammed the trunk closed. He had disabled the emergency release inside—a pull-tab made of glow-in-the-dark plastic intended to release the latch from inside.

Octavios began kicking and yelling from within.

“Knock it off. It’s just until we are clear of the prison. I don’t want you where a sniper could take a shot at you until I can assess whether we’ve been tailed.”

“You might have asked!” Octavios squalled from inside the trunk.

“I wasn’t in the mood to argue about it.”

Bolan removed his Beretta 93-R in its shoulder harness from the war bag and shrugged into the leather rig. Then he put his Desert Eagle in its Kydex holster at his waist. Finally, he took the Out The Front—OTF—automatic knife from the bag and slipped it into his waistband at the two o’clock position.

Once he got the Chevy moving, he left the Canadian facility and made several blocks without incident. He slowed then stopped for a red light, checking his six and surveying the traffic to the front and sides of the vehicle. There was nothing.