Shadow Hunt

His hands and feet were tied together and he was strung up between two willow trees that were slowly bending with his weight. Blood dripped from the cut on his scalp into the water below, carrying his scent to the alligators that infested the area.

He scanned the water for the telltale ripples of an approaching gator and spotted not one, but several, slowly closing in on him. For the moment, Bolan was safe, though it was only a matter of time before the branches gave way.

One alligator was getting more curious, and as it swam around below Bolan, a trickle of blood hit the water. Large jaws snapped out and slashed through the murky swamp.

The tree limbs creaked as Bolan tried to inch his body away from the reptile, and the Executioner knew that his chances of survival were diminishing with every second. Using all his strength, he pulled on the limb that seemed most likely to break. The tree groaned in objection, but finally relented. As the gator surfaced again, Bolan reached up and grabbed the sagging branch. It lowered inch by inch as he struggled to free his arm. The gator swam beneath him, his tail flicking Bolan’s boot as a subtle reminder that his time was just about up.

Bolan strained harder at the branch, while watching the gators on final approach. One of them circled and dived below the surface, and Bolan wondered if the creature was going to come leaping out of the water to snatch him in its jaws, like he was a worm on a hook.

The Executioner’s premonition proved accurate.

Every man has his price…

—English 18th-century proverb

There may not be much in this world that comes free, but there is one thing that nobody can put a price on—human life. And I will challenge anyone who tries!

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Prologue

U.S. Marshal Jack Rio did his best to get comfortable in the too small seat of the rental car. He wasn’t muscle-bound or obese, but he had broad shoulders and stood a few inches over six feet tall. With the exception of a full-size truck or an SUV, not too many vehicles on the road were made for someone his size, so getting in and out of the black Nissan Sentra for him felt like he was getting in and out of a clown car. On the seat next to him was a slender briefcase, and his sweat-stained cowboy hat that had about as much business in New Orleans as he did.

Rio pulled another cigarette out of his hard pack, lit it and blew the smoke out the open window. He tossed the remaining pack into the console and mentally reminded himself that he should quit when he got back home. Overhead, the sky threatened rain, but so far as he’d seen, it did that almost every day here. Maybe it was the season, he thought, but it was no wonder the city worried about floods and hurricanes—if it was any lower, it’d been under the damn Gulf, not next to it.

The door to the restaurant he was watching opened, and he tensed, then relaxed as a young couple came out holding hands, laughing, and headed for their car. Mosca’s was busy this night, and despite its nondescript white exterior and plain sign, the food was reputed to be outstanding.

The fact that it had been the epicenter of organized crime in the area until the early nineties hadn’t apparently done much to harm business. New Orleans was really the beginning of organized crime that started with two Matranga brothers in the late 1800s and ended with the last-known leader of the Matranga Family, Carlos Marcello. He died in 1993, but he’d worked out of Mosca’s as much as anywhere. Which made the whole damn situation that Rio was in even more strange.

The marshal shifted in his seat, flicked ash out the window, and tried to ignore the trickle of sweat that slid free of his short-cropped black-and-gray hair and down the center of his back. Everyone in New Orleans was sweaty. It was always hot and humid, just on the edge of raining. Under his navy blue sport coat, his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson was heavy and uncomfortable, molding his dress shirt permanently into his skin, but there was no way he was going to take off the coat—or the gun. A lot of experienced shooters carried a 9 mm pistol for personal protection, but Rio’s experiences as a U.S. marshal had taught him the value of a weapon powerful enough to a blow a hole in an engine block.

Rio believed in many things, but the existence of both true evil and pure human fuckery convinced him to load his .45 magazine with hollowpoint rounds, and to carry the weapon at all times when he was awake and have it close at hand when he was asleep. So far, his approach had kept him alive in spite of assignments hunting down very bad men from Mexico to California and all over the American Southwest: Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and even southern Nevada. As a “floater” for the U.S. Marshals Service, Rio traveled wherever the higher-ups decided they wanted him to go, working on cases ranging from missing persons to drug runners to vicious killers that they’d prefer the media never heard about.

Sighing, Rio opened the door of the rental car and climbed out, continuing to watch the restaurant. The entire situation felt wrong, and his instincts weren’t something he took lightly. Why in the world would that shine boy from the DA’s office want to meet here? He had to know that Marcello had been using this same restaurant as a front and a meeting place back when he was running things down here. Maybe the attorney just had a twisted sense of humor, but that didn’t quite fit, either.

The real bitch of it was that he was totally on his own here. This wasn’t an official case, and he sure as hell wasn’t on duty. He was supposedly on vacation, but like some other law-enforcement officers he knew, there were no real vacations for him—just times when he worked a case out of his jurisdiction because it smelled funny and he wanted to try to figure it out. That’s why he was here, sweating through his shirt and his sport coat, instead of drinking cold beer and fishing in the Gulf with his brother.

Almost a year ago, when he was running down a fugitive who’d thought he could hide out in L.A., Rio had met an old FBI hound who talked about the organized crime in New Orleans and how their whole operation just kind of vanished after Marcello died. It stank to high heaven, but no one had been able to find anything else that could establish they were still there and still in business. Rio had been intrigued, and did a little digging of his own. Over time, organized crime in New Orleans had gotten into all of it: drugs, smuggling, money laundering and the usual organized crime list of dirty deeds, and the Matranga Family was in charge of it all.

Usually, when an organized crime family went out of business, it was because another family came in and took over, or everyone was killed, but so far as the Feds could tell, organized crime was out of business entirely in the New Orleans area.

And since the whole damn city was corrupt, Rio thought, that didn’t make one thin dime’s worth of sense.

Someone was there—it was just a question of finding them out. Since Rio’s main job was locating people who didn’t want to be found, he figured he’d go down and spend a week poking around. At the time, he’d thought something might turn up simply because he was an outsider and could see things a bit differently than a local. So far, however, he’d run into a lot of shrugged shoulders, dead ends and urban stories that were more legend than fact. Until he’d spoken to the kid from the DA’s office, Trenton Smythe, Rio had pretty much figured that he was going to come up as empty as everyone else.

He took one final drag on his cigarette and tossed it to the ground, crushing it beneath his boot heel. Something didn’t feel right, but he was supposed to be on a plane home tomorrow, so if he was going to find anything, he had to find it now. And in spite of his smarmy name and nervous manner, Smythe had seemed convinced he knew something worth telling. Since it appeared he’d run out of options, Rio crossed the parking lot and entered the restaurant.

Smythe was sitting in a booth near the back, his tie loosened and his brown hair mussed, which seemed unusual to Rio. He pegged him as the polished type who looked down on anyone who wasn’t wearing a pressed suit and tie, like the first time Smythe saw Rio in the DA’s office. But the young attorney didn’t look polished this night with his yellow shirt unbuttoned at the top and looking like it had been slept in. An unopened bottle of wine and two glasses, waited on the table, along with a couple of menus. Even though the bottle of wine wasn’t open, Rio would wager his pension that Smythe had already had a drink or two. When Smythe spotted Rio, he raised a hand in greeting. As the marshal walked across the restaurant, he noticed that most of the tables were full and waiters scurried back and forth with food and wine. Nothing appeared out of place.

As he reached the table, Smythe stood and said, “I didn’t think you were coming. You’re late.”

“I’m cautious,” Rio said. “I’ve been here for a half hour, just watching.”

“For what?” he asked.

“Trouble,” he replied. “Trouble’s like reality—it shows up when you least expect it.”

Smythe shrugged noncommittally. “Wine?” he offered, holding up the bottle. Rio didn’t know much about wine, but the aged merlot seemed like a big gesture for someone on government pay.

“No, thanks,” Rio said. “You go ahead.”

A waiter appeared at the table, opened the wine and poured. After telling them the specials, he asked for their order. Rio ordered spaghetti and Smythe the house shrimp specialty, then the waiter headed off for the kitchen to turn in the ticket. No matter what else, the smells coming from the kitchen were enticing.

After a minute or two of silence, Rio decided to nudge Smythe a bit. “So,” he said. “You told me you had information about organized crime in this area after Marcello died. Why don’t you share it with me?”

Smythe scoffed. “That’s easy?” he asked. “You’re not any smarter than the other federal law officers in this area.”

Rio held up his hands in mock surrender. “You’re the one who said you had information. I’m just asking what it is.”

“Well, nothing’s free,” Smythe retorted. “Hell, they’re charging for air at the gas stations now, and if I tell you what I know, I’ve got to get something for it, too.”

The waiter returned, refilled the wineglasses and set out bread on the table. “Your meals will be up in a couple of minutes.”

Once he’d left, Rio said, “What do you want?”

“Two things,” he said. “First, I want out of New Orleans—out of Louisiana—and I mean way out. Fucking Wyoming or Canada or something.”

Knowing what was coming, Rio asked anyway. “And?”

“A boatload of cash,” he said. “Enough so I never have to work a day in my life again.”

“So, you want Club Med witness protection,” Rio said. “You’re dreaming, kid. The FBI’s been down here digging for years and found nothing, so whatever you’ve got can’t be that good.”

“You don’t get it, do you, Rio? No one finds them because they’re everywhere—every law-enforcement agency, every cop, every lawyer. The FBI hasn’t had any success because their agents are either on the take or kept out of the loop. What I know—what I’ll tell you—will rock this city from the top down. It’s worth what I’m asking.”

“You’re going to have to give me more than empty words and promises, boy. I can’t just make a call and get you what you want. I’m going to need to have rock-solid evidence—names, places, you name it. And then, maybe.”

“What I don’t have,” he said, “I can get. There are people who trust me, and I have access to everything that I need.”

“When?” Rio asked.

“I can have it for you by tomorrow. I just have to copy the files.” Smythe took a long swallow of wine, which was when Rio noticed that his hands were shaking.

He took another long look around the restaurant, but didn’t see anything that raised his hackles. Still… “You nervous, Smythe?”

“Hell, yes, I’m nervous,” he snapped, his blue eyes darting around the room. “Wouldn’t you be?”

Rio shrugged. “I’m not the type.”

“If you knew these guys, you would be. If they knew I was having dinner with a federal agent, I wouldn’t make it through the night,” he said. He refilled his glass. “I’ll have everything for you tomorrow, but I want your word that you can get me what I want.”

Rio thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I can get it,” he said. “But not until I see what you’re putting on the table.”

“Fair enough. When?”

“First thing in the morning,” he said. “My hotel, seven sharp. I’ve got a flight scheduled to leave at ten.”

“You’re leaving?” Smythe asked, incredulous. “Now?”

“Relax,” Rio said. “If you bring me real information we can use to ferret these bastards out, I’ll reschedule.”

“Oh, all right, then.”

Their food came and they ate in silence. Italian wasn’t his favorite, but even Rio had to admit that his spaghetti was very good. He finished quickly, then stood up. “You’re buying, right, Smythe?” he asked.

“Sure, sure,” he said. His words were slightly slurred, but then he’d almost polished off the entire bottle of wine himself.

“Tomorrow morning, then,” Rio said. “Don’t be late.”

“I won’t,” he said.

Rio left the restaurant without another word. The parking lot was dark, and his car was parked on the far edge of the lot. He moved with easy grace to the vehicle, sweating already in the humid night air. He unlocked the door, opened it and wedged himself into the seat. Then he put the key into the ignition, started the engine and reached for the air-conditioning. It was too damn humid to not run it on full blast, and he twisted the dial as far to the right as it would go.

As the vents blasted air into his face, two things happened at once. He recognized the acrid tang of pepper spray, and four large men appeared around his car—one at each door. Almost instantly blinded, he tried the door, but the goon standing there held it shut.

“Damn it!” he said, sneezing, coughing and hacking. He forced himself against the door with all his strength and it popped open. He fell out onto the concrete, reaching for his gun even as he landed. Blind, he didn’t have much of a chance, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

“Don’t bother, cowboy,” a voice said in his ear. He felt the cold metal barrel of a gun pushed against his flesh.

Still coughing, his lungs and eyes burned from the pepper spray, Rio moved his hands away from his coat. The man pulled out the .45 and handed it to one of his pals. The marshal couldn’t make out faces clearly through the tears running from his eyes.

“What the hell?” Rio started to say, when the Italian leather boot slammed into his head.

“Welcome to New Orleans, cowboy,” the man said. “The boss wants to have a word with you, and I suggest you cooperate. The gators are hungry this time of year.”

Knowing that if he fought now, they’d just kill him outright, Rio relaxed. He’d have to wait for a better opportunity.

“Told you I’d bring him,” he heard Smythe’s voice say. “Didn’t I?”

“Yeah, Trenton, you did real good,” the man said.

His eyes were clearing, and Rio saw a man dressed in an expensive suit, Smythe standing behind him. Rio spit blood from his split lip. “I won’t be forgetting this, Smythe,” he said. “Not for a long, long time.”

“You’ve got more to worry about than I do, Marshal. A lot more.”

Rio was about to reply when the boot hit him again, this time connecting with his temple, and the world went hot, then dark.

1

There weren’t that many people who could call Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, out of the blue and get an instant response, but Hal Brognola was one of them. Apparently one of the big Fed’s colleagues, Jacob Rio—a man Brognola had a great deal of respect for—had become quite concerned lately for the welfare of his brother, U.S. Marshal Jack Rio.

According to Jacob, Jack was almost a week overdue for a visit they’d scheduled. Jacob had told Brognola that his brother had been slated for a couple of weeks off, and they’d planned to use one of them to go fishing in the Gulf. Brognola had asked him what his brother was doing for the other one, but Jacob hadn’t known for sure.

“He just said he wanted to check something out,” he’d said. “For him, that usually means a really cold case or something way off the beaten path or both.”

“You’ve tried all his numbers?” Brognola had asked. “Gone to his house? Contacted his office?”

“All of the above,” Jacob said. “No one knows anything, and it’s not like Jack to just disappear.”

Trusting Jacob Rio’s instincts, Brognola contacted Bolan and relayed the details as he knew them. Bolan caught the next flight to Houston out of Denver, where he’d been taking some downtime mountain climbing. From Houston, the drive down to Galveston where the marshal lived wasn’t very long, and Bolan cruised the street looking for the white, two-story house that Brognola had told him Rio called home. He ran through his conversation with Brognola again as he drove. It would seem by all accounts that Rio was the real thing—a tough fighter, a more than competent lawman, and the kind of person you’d want watching your back when all hell broke loose. He wasn’t the kind of man to take off on a whim without telling anyone.

Rio’s neighborhood was that in name only. It might be an area that would make your average suburban family nervous, as the houses were interrupted by equipment and buildings for the oil companies. It wasn’t an area where people would let their kids play on the street.

As the driveway came into view, Bolan saw that a black Lincoln Town Car occupied it, so he pulled up short and parked. There was no record of Rio owning a Town Car in the information that Brognola had sent him. The license plate was Louisiana, not Texas, and wasn’t a law-enforcement plate. The Executioner climbed out of the car and eased the door closed, then made his way along a low hedge that fronted the house. He could see that the door was open, but wasn’t close enough yet to hear anything from the inside. It didn’t help that the ocean was less than two blocks away and the incoming tide was making enough noise that hearing anything that wasn’t up close and personal would be difficult.

Deciding that a direct approach might work just as well as stealth, Bolan straightened and turned up the walk that led to the front door. When he neared it, he could hear the sound of muttered cursing and the crash of drawers being slammed shut. He knocked loudly on the door, and called out, “Hey, Rio, you in there?”

The sounds from the back of the house stopped. A long moment of silence, and Bolan called out once more. “Rio, you in there?”

Hurried footsteps moved through the house, and Bolan saw a man enter the small living room. He was dressed in a nice suit, obviously tailored, but looked disheveled. The coat and shirt were both wrinkled, and his hair was mussed and sweaty. “Sorry, sorry,” the man said. He had a distinct accent that marked him as a native of New Orleans. “I was in the back cleaning up.” He gestured with a thumb toward the back of the house.

“Yeah, I heard,” Bolan said. “I’m looking for Jack Rio. He around?”

“No, uh, he’s not here right now,” the man said. “Who are you?”

“Oh, just an old friend,” he said, stepping into the foyer. “We do a little fishing from time to time, and I thought I’d drop by and see if he was up for something this weekend.”

“Fishing, huh?” the man said. He was large enough to fill the entryway into the living room, and he stepped forward to meet Bolan. “You don’t look like much of a fisherman.”

“These aren’t my fishing clothes,” Bolan replied, easing the front door shut behind him.

“Yeah, right, whatever,” the man said. “Look, Rio’s not here, so why don’t you beat it?”

Bolan closed the final distance between them, stopping just a couple of steps away from the man. “Sorry,” he said, “but I can’t do that.”

“Why the hell not?” the man demanded. “Come back later.”

“Because,” Bolan said, jabbing a fist into the man’s solar plexus, “I’ve decided I don’t like you.”

The man doubled over, but was smart enough to back away at the same time, so Bolan’s follow-up missed. He straightened, coming up with a mean-looking .45 from beneath his coat. “Don’t take another step,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

Bolan didn’t hesitate. He stepped in close, even as the goon started to speak, and caught his right arm in a reverse lock with his left. He jerked up hard and felt the elbow snap. The man screamed, and the gun hit the wooden floor with a dull thud. Pushing forward with all his weight, Bolan brought his right hand around and drove a hammer blow to the man’s jaw.

He staggered and started to go down. Knowing that his adversary was likely to recover quickly, Bolan chopped a blow into the back of the man’s neck. He dropped like a sack of cement.

Bolan moved quickly, yanking a lamp cord out of the wall along with the lamp, using it as a makeshift rope to tie the thug’s hands behind his back. It took most of the soldier’s not inconsiderable strength to get the thug propped upright against the couch. The man groaned, already stirring.

Leaving him for the moment, Bolan gathered up the dropped .45, noting even as he put it in a pocket that its serial numbers had been filed clean. He jogged toward the back of the house and saw that Rio’s office was completely trashed. Drawers were pulled open and tossed on the floor, and the contents of two filing cabinets were spread out everywhere. The computer was on, but only showed a log-in screen.