They were pinned

The dogs and trackers came behind them. Men on horseback soon followed. Bolan watched them from behind cover. He clicked his radio. “Piet, what have you got up front?”

“Armed men, platoon strength,” Piet said.

Bolan glanced at Gilad. “Anything?”

Gilad and the guide spoke in whispered Russian. Gilad shook his head. “He says he doesn’t know who these guys are. He says despite their clothes they are not Tajik.”

Bolan surveyed their trackers. “Piet, how are the guys ahead of us armed?”

“It’s all Russian kit.”

“My guys are all carrying Chinese weapons,” Bolan said and clicked his radio. “Eckhart, you there?”

“I copy, Coop.”

“I think the people in front and behind are two different groups.”

Eckhart wasn’t panicking yet but he was clearly agitated. “What are you saying, Coop?”

“I’ve got a theory these guys have two different agendas.” Bolan lowered his binoculars and looked at the ex-Ranger. “I say we introduce them and watch what happens.”

Lethal Compound

The Executioner®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

He who seizes on the moment, he is the right man.

—Johann Goethe

1749–1832

Faust

When the enemy attacks, my only option is to seize whatever opportunity comes my way.

—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

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

1

Atascadero, California

Gary Manning sighed as he sat in the sniper-hide and scanned the trees with his night-vision binoculars. “I hate babysitting jobs,” he grumbled.

Mack Bolan silently agreed. He scanned the surrounding central California oak forest. Body-guarding and babysitting were nearly synonymous in his book. You waited for the enemy to do something and then reacted to it. That was a recipe for disaster as the reaction often ended up happening after the damage was done. The man known as the Executioner was proactive. He believed in getting to the enemy before they could act.

“And babysitting billionaires?” Manning continued. “What’s up with that?”

“He likes hunting.” Bolan countered. “He can’t be all bad.”

Manning grunted noncommittally. The big Canadian was an avid hunter himself and had personally whiled away many a happy hour of his free time hunting the wild hogs that descended on the ranches, farms and wineries of California like a plague of porcine locusts every year. Their rooting created significant erosion damage to the hillsides every year. They voraciously ate any crop they came across.

As a result, pig-hunting season in California was a year-round proposition. Even with no restrictions on hunting them, the wild boar were winning.

Their population continued to increase. Their range continued to expand. Trophy-size hogs were everywhere.

So were men with rifles.

It was the perfect opportunity to stage a hunting “accident.” The enemy, whoever they were, could have a hundred snipers in the area armed with high-powered rifles with high-powered optics; all sneaking through the woods wearing camouflage and no one in local law enforcement would bat an eye.

Bolan knew Manning would love to be hunting the big game but they had a job to do. He swung his sights onto the cabin. It was made of logs but what it was in reality was a three-story log mansion with guest wings, servants’ quarters, a wine cellar and a fully equipped and domed astronomy observatory.

The net of the tennis court had been taken down and Philip Eckhart’s helicopter was parked on it.

Eckhart was a billionaire, and three very real attempts had recently been made on his life. Eckhart had decided to continue on with his anything but routine life, including his hunting trip. He had, however, stepped up security. Bolan knew that everything within a hundred-yard radius of the lodge was under video surveillance. The lodge grounds had a web of infrared laser motion detectors. Eight armed men wearing maroon Eckhart Endeavors windbreakers patrolled the grounds in two-man teams. Each team patrolled with a large guard dog. Another half-dozen security men were inside the house, checking security feeds and carrying pistols in concealment holsters.

Bolan frowned as Eckhart and a guest walked past a huge, open, brightly lit, second-story window. The man he watched was unremarkable to look at. He might be a billionaire but he was still wearing the same scuffed and stained khaki pants and flannel shirt from the dawn and dusk hunts of the day. Several of his companions had bagged pigs that were being roasted on huge spits in the backyard. Eckhart had held off on his own shots. It seemed he was waiting for a prize-winner.

A look of approval ghosted across Bolan’s face as Eckhart’s personal bodyguard shadowed the two men a few discreet steps behind. The man wasn’t very tall but his shoulders were broad, he stood ramrod-straight and projected like he was a six footer. He wore khaki shorts and a company polo shirt that had been tailored to fit his physique. Unlike the rest of the security detail he made no effort to hide the Browning 9 mm automatic or the thirteen-inch khukri dagger he wore on his belt.

Eckhart had hired himself a Gurkha from Gurkha Security Limited.

The man missed nothing. His brows bunched with obvious concern as his charge walked past the window. It was clear the bodyguard had stopped trying to advise Eckhart on how to live to see another day. Instead the man had made himself Eckhart’s shadow. The bodyguard gazed out the window in passing and Bolan could almost feel the former British soldier searching for him in the dark.

“Interesting,” Manning remarked.

Phillip Eckhart was an interesting guy. He had grown up unremarkably in the San Luis Obispo area. Hunting and fishing had taken up most of his time to the detriment of most other things in his life. Two years of junior college had barely squeaked him into the California Polytechnical Institute, but once there he had excelled, graduating magna cum laude in computer science with a minor in archaeology, a subject that had remained a passion in his life. Eckhart had never invented anything. What he had excelled at was looking at something and figuring out a way to make it better. He’d started working in Silicon Valley for established companies. Eventually he started his own company, went public, sold it and was a millionaire at the age of thirty-five. He had taken the profits and started another company, and then another and another. Then he started buying other, well-established businesses and made them work better. Before long he was a billionaire. His umbrella company was Eckhart Endeavors. Through that he looked around, found things that interested him and engaged in fascinating endeavors that made stupendous profits. Wall Street constantly held its breath waiting to see what he would do next.

Now someone wanted him dead.

Bolan didn’t find that surprising. One generally didn’t become a billionaire without making enemies. Often, vast numbers of them. The one strange caveat to the situation was that Phillip Eckhart was the only known billionaire on the planet who also happened to be a genuinely nice guy.

The President of the United States was concerned by the threats to Eckhart’s life. Eckhart was a friend and an important campaign contributor. Nonetheless Eckhart had refused the security services of the FBI, the CIA and the Secret Service, saying he could take care of himself. But the President was troubled. So was the CIA. Was Eckhart just being his eccentric self or was he involved in something he wanted to hide? The president had consulted Hal Brognola, Director of the Justice Department’s Special Operations Group, who’d called in Bolan for a covert operation.

Phillip Eckhart’s brain was a national treasure, and the country could not afford to lose him. Furthermore, if one of the wealthiest men on earth was really up to something ugly, the United States government needed to know about it. The men from Stony Man Farm had fanned out. Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman and his team had begun their computer wizardry, looking into Eckhart’s comings and goings while Bolan and Manning sat in a sweaty sniper-hide eating protein bars while the smell of roasted boar wafted up the hillside to torment them.

Eckhart’s hired security wasn’t bad, but if Bolan and Manning could sneak up within rifle range so could someone else, and the Executioner knew he could take Eckhart anytime he wanted to.

Manning spoke very quietly. A tiny LED was flashing on their security suite. “Motion, near Suspect One.”

Bolan and Manning had spent the seventy-two hours before Eckhart arrived at the cabin mapping the valley and finding the best spots for an enemy to set up to kill Eckhart. They’d established a descending order of best possible points from which to launch an attack on the lodge. Bolan and Manning had rigged the sites with security. Suspect One was the prime spot in this neck of the woods for hunting billionaires. It gave a commanding view of the house and the grounds and was within five hundred yards, putting it well within range of a good rifle or a handheld rocket launcher. There was good cover and concealment and it offered several escape routes, one of which led to a glade that was wide enough to support a helicopter landing.

“Confirm motion,” Bolan said.

The pigs had been setting off the motion sensors regularly.

“Motion confirmed on two sources.” Manning looked up with a grim smile. “Sensors are picking up significant metal readings.”

Unless they had eaten a hunter and his gear the one thing the wild boars of California didn’t do was carry rifles, and something had tripped the motion sensors at Suspect One and was carrying a significant source of metal. Bolan took out his phone and pressed a preset number.

The Executioner watched as Eckhart stopped by a window and pulled out his phone. The billionaire stared at his phone for long moments while it rang. When he was off hunting, fishing, sailing or mountain climbing his personal secretary took all his calls. This was his personal phone. Only the people closest to him had access to this number. But, with the help of Kurtzman, Mack Bolan did, too. He watched Eckhart continue to stare at his phone. The screen was giving Eckhart no caller ID. The Executioner figured it was 50/50 whether he responded.

Eckhart suddenly flipped open the phone and answered brightly. “Eckhart!”

Bolan spoke quietly. “Mr. Eckhart, listen carefully. I’d like you to step away from the window.”

Eckhart’s face blanked for the barest instant and then he disappeared behind the three-foot beams of his log cabin mansion. “Who is this? What do you want?”

“I’m extra security for you. An attempt is about to made on your life. I would like you to very quietly pull your security teams, your staff and your guests into the house. I believe the enemy will have snipers and possible support weapons. Out in the open your men will be cut to pieces,” the Executioner said.

“I have a sharpshooter in the observatory up top. How about he counter-snipes?”

Clearly Eckhart was thinking ahead but not far enough. “Pull him. The dome is a death trap. Your shooter will get one shot and then he’ll be killed. You should have deployed him in the hills,” Bolan said.

“I never thought of that, I—”

There was no time to debate tactics. “I gather you have a basement shelter that is fire and earthquake proof?”

“Yeah…”

“Get everyone in it,” Bolan said.

“I’m not big on holing up. I’d rather keep my options flexible if I’m under attack,” Eckhart said.

“I can’t tell you what to do, Mr. Eckhart, but I would suggest you at least pull into the interior of the house, and if you see shots on the hillside try to hold your fire. I’m going to try to take the gunmen out, now, and you might hit me or a buddy of mine.”

“What if they get past you?”

“The only way they’ll get past us is if we’re dead. At that point you’re free to do whatever you like.”

Eckhart was silent for a moment. “Sounds fair to me. Good luck!” he said.

“Thanks, and you.” Bolan put his communication headset in place. “Stay on the line.”

“You got it. Keep me advised,” Eckhart replied.

Manning was smiling. “For a billionaire, he sounds like an okay Joe,” he said.

Bolan muted his mike. “Yeah, let’s keep the boy breathing.”

Bolan and Manning pulled night-vision goggles down over their eyes and began their approach on Suspect One. The little redoubt had a pair of fallen trees that formed a natural berm, and between the two trunks there was ample room to aim a rifle from cover. At fifty yards Bolan and Manning each dropped to one knee. Two rifle barrels could be seen between the trunks.

The barrels had hoop-shaped muzzle breaks as big around as beer cans.

“Those are anti-materiel rifles,” Manning whispered. “And bigger than fifty caliber.”

“Two heavy weapons, that’ll mean at least two spotters if not four. Make it a half dozen with a seventh as commander,” Bolan said.

“These guys are serious,” Manning said.

Bolan’s blood went cold as the light-amplifying lenses of his goggles showed him a pair of lasers drawing green lines down toward the house. He keyed his headset. “Eckhart?” he whispered.

“Yeah,” the billionaire responded.

“Where are you?”

“Just watching the football game with friends while the pig finishes. Security is pulling back and my guests and I are all in the interior of the house like you said.”

“Have everyone hit the floor! Now!” Bolan urged.

The hillside lit up like doomsday. Six-foot gouts of fire blasted from the muzzles of the two massive weapons. They fired and fired again, methodically. Splinters fountained off the side of the lodge as huge projectiles tore through the treated timber like tissue. Bolan could hear men and women screaming through his headset. The two massive weapons on the hillside jackhammered holes in the side of Eckhart’s hunting retreat. Eckhart shouted in Bolan’s earpiece. “We’re under attack!”

“On it!” Bolan raced along the hillside with Manning silently taking his six. “I’m going to flank! Pin ’em down on my signal!” he told Manning.

Bolan split off and took the deer path that looped up behind the snipers’ position. The antitank rifles kept punching holes through the lodge. Bolan came to the pocket on the hillside and found killers intent on business. Two men were crouched behind the gigantic rifles aiming through the firing slit formed by the fallen trunks. The optics attached to the weapons were impressive and appeared to include small targeting computers. Two more men were assisting with loading magazines into the smoking weapons. One more man, who was obviously in command, was watching the besieged lodge through binoculars.

The assassins should have had someone watching the back door.

“Now!” Bolan said.

Manning’s automatic rifle roared to life and the gunners and loaders froze in shock as bullets ripped across the tree trunks. The commander sensed something behind him and started to turn.

Bolan spoke quietly. “Freeze.”

The man dropped his binoculars on their strap and went for the Uzi slung by his side.

The Beretta 93-R machine pistol in Bolan’s left hand walked a three-round burst up the commanding assassin’s chest. The .50 caliber Desert Eagle in Bolan’s right swung as the two loaders went for their submachine guns. They lost the tops of their heads for their trouble. The anti-materiel rifles were far too big to be wielded in close combat. The gunners dropped their weapons and went for their pistols. The Beretta trip-hammered one man’s head apart and Bolan took two strides forward to point the smoking machine pistol between the surviving assassin’s eyes. “Last chance. Take the pistol out with two fingers, left hand, and toss it away,” he said.

The man stared down the muzzle of the Beretta and complied.

“How many more?” the Executioner asked.

The man gave the unwavering machine pistol a leery look but kept his mouth shut. Bolan chopped the Desert Eagle down and clubbed the man unconscious. “Manning, I have four hostiles down, one prisoner.”

“I see no more activity on the hill from my end. You want me to come ahead?”

“No, go down and let Eckhart know the situation seems to be contained. He’ll probably be pretty grateful. Try to pump him for anything useful before local law enforcement show up and start asking questions or his lawyers show up and start advising him. I’ll secure the prisoner. Then I’m going down the trail to see if I can locate their extraction point.

“Copy that,” Manning said.

2

San Luis Obispo, California

The Executioner connected his laptop computer to his secure satellite link and then leaned back on the hotel bed. He’d left Gary Manning with Eckhart for the last twenty-four hours to see if he could pick up any intel around the lodge while Kurtzman worked the angles from his end. Bolan had found an SUV on the back side of the hill. It had been rented in town under a false name. The prisoner wasn’t talking so local law enforcement had handed him over to the FBI.

Bolan typed in a few codes and Aaron Kurtzman popped up on his screen in real time. “So what can you tell me about our buddy Eckhart?” Bolan asked.

Kurtzman grinned on the screen. “Well, Gary says his spit-roasted wild boar is fantastic. He’s hot-tubbing with supermodels, drinking single malt Scotch and Eckhart calls him ‘good buddy.’”

Bolan shook his head.

“He also says that Eckhart really is a hell of a guy. Real regular Joe, for a billionaire,” Kurtzman added.

“That’s what everyone seems to be saying,” Bolan replied.

“I’ve been researching our man, and it seems to be true. For example, a few years back he invested in African diamond mines. He started dating a French actress who gave him the lecture about African blood diamonds and he completely divested himself of the business on his end and took a loss.”

Bolan had to admit that was unusual for a captain of industry. “What else? There’s got to be some dirt on the man.”

“Well…he likes to date models.”

“Big deal,” Bolan said. “Anything else?”

“Well…he’s always had a love affair with archaeology.”

“Well, now we’ve got him.” Bolan folded his arms across his chest decisively.

Kurtzman sighed. “I know. Hear me out. Amateur archaeology is his passion. The guy hands out grants like party favors to universities with red-hot archaeology departments. And if there’s one real boondoggle in his life, one place where he makes bad business choices, it’s archaeology. The man has thrown away some serious coin on far-flung digs and treasure hunts that went nowhere. Of course he can afford it, but we’re talking about a genuine addiction for digging around in the sandbox.”

Bolan considered the information. “Bring up his guest list at the hunting lodge again.”

Kurtzman clicked keys and the names and photos popped onto Bolan’s screen. He scanned them and pointed at a name. “Dr. Marcus Klein. Doctor of what?”

Kurtzman searched. “Professor of classical archaeology, UC Berkeley.”

“Not your average great white hunter,” Bolan said.

“No.” Kurtzman’s craggy brow furrowed. “He’s a card-carrying member of PETA, actually.”

“Something very intriguing must have made him ignore his scruples and attend a billionaire’s pig hunt in rural California.”

“He wants a grant? A lot of academics do a lot of things they’re ashamed of to receive funding.”

Bolan tapped another picture on his screen. “Who’s the blonde?” She had long straight hair, arched eyebrows, full lips and big white teeth. She looked curvaceous and was wearing a pink argyle sweater and pin-striped pants. Stylish square eyeglasses completed her look. She had the fulsome, librarian seductress look going to the hilt. “She’s not Eckhart’s usual Euro-lanky ice-queen girlfriend.”

Kurtzman grinned. He was a man who appreciated a woman with curves. “That is Nancy Rhynman. Double major in archaeology and linguistics. Specializing in ancient Greek studies on the one hand and primate body language on the other.”

“Primate body language?”

“She wrote a thesis matching ape gestures, expressions and body language to humans. She speaks on the lecture circuit and gives corporate seminars on reading body language to help businesses get ahead.”

“That’s got to pay more than the ancient Greeks.” Bolan’s eyes narrowed. “What is Professor Klein’s specialty?”

Kurtzman smiled as he saw where this was going. “The ancient Greeks.”

“Eckhart probably wouldn’t care about reading body language except as cocktail conversation. This Nancy gal is attractive but he already has a supermodel girlfriend. She’s there for her archaeological expertise. So is Klein. I need you to find out what they’re all up to,” Bolan said.

The computer chimed. The Executioner clicked on Accept and a video inset of Gary Manning appeared. “Hello, boys!”

“What have you got on your end?’ Bolan asked.

“Turns out the guys with the big guns were doing more than firing for effect. The weapons were Hungarian Gepard rifles. The M3 version, chambered for 14.5 mm Russian rounds. We’re talking a thousand-grain bullet traveling at over three thousand feet per second. I surveyed the damage. You could put your fist through some of the holes they punched through that house.”

Bolan had seen the weapons up close and didn’t doubt it.

“And here’s the real interesting thing,” Manning continued. “They put a round through Eckhart’s bedroom that hit his bed, his pillow actually, right on the side of the bed where he sleeps. In his private study his computer was smashed apart and the trajectory would have cut him in half if he’d been online. They put a round where he sits in his favorite chair in the TV room, one through the dining room that would have killed anyone sitting at the head of the table and another one would have taken him on the can in the master bedroom. These guys had intimate knowledge of Eckhart’s place and had his usual stationary spots plotted in their firing computers. I’ve never seen an assassination attempt like this, but I’m telling you, it was slick.”

The fact they knew the inside of Eckhart’s house and the usual places he lurked implied he’d been betrayed from within and his enemies were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to kill him. “How’s life at the lodge otherwise?” Bolan asked.

“Going swimmingly, actually. Phil and I are—”

“Phil?” Bolan inquired.

“Yeah, Phil. That’s his name.” Manning sounded vaguely offended. “Anyway, we all know Phil didn’t want CIA spooks or FBI suits lurking in every corner of his life. But after last night he’s pretty grateful and he seems to like me a whole lot.” Manning was positively smug. “I just happen to have the news flash you’ve been waiting for.”

“And what would that be?” Bolan asked.

“Eckhart’s planning, how does he like to put it? An…endeavor.”

Bolan and Kurtzman both smiled at the same time. “Would that be an archaeological endeavor?” Bolan asked.

Manning deflated as his thunder was stolen. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

“Skill and science. So where’s our boy headed?” Kurtzman asked.

“Don’t know. But he’s hinting like it’s a real roughing-it situation, and he implied it’s outside North America. He mentioned mountains and unfriendly natives and asked if I knew how to ride a horse. The real interesting news is that Eckhart said he’s hiring security for the endeavor, and we’re talking mercs.”

“So what did you say?” Bolan asked.

“I didn’t have to say anything. He offered me the job of head of security.”

“You took the job?” Bolan said.

“Naw, I wanted to, but I told him I couldn’t do it. Told him I had other commitments. I did tell him I knew a guy who was reliable, not on the government payroll and needed a job.” Manning gave Bolan a shit-eating grin over the link.

Bolan nodded. It was true, he didn’t work for the United States government. It was truer to say he had a working relationship with it, though the lines got blurry sometimes even for him. “Nice work. You find out anything else?”

“Not too much. When he and I weren’t flapping our gums about the great outdoors Phil spent a lot of time in his private study with some professor guy and a bubbly blonde.”

Bolan and Bear shot each other knowing looks.

Manning perked up. “Oh, and the Gurkha? I got his name. Lalbahadur Rai, and you were right, Striker. Phil hired him through Gurkha Security Limited, U.K. With that and his name we should be able to check his credentials, but I can tell you right now just by watching him. He’s a badass.”

Every Gurkha Bolan had ever met was. Pound for pound they were some of the toughest soldiers on earth. “How am I supposed to do the meet-and-greet with Eckhart?” he asked.

“Don’t know your ultimate destination, but if you want the job, you’ll meet him and the rest of his team in London. I chatted you up and he’s excited to meet you. I also told him you were broke so he has a round-trip plane ticket, first class and spending money with your name on it if you’ll come and give his endeavor a listen. Oh, and the job? It pays a thousand dollars a day, and he mentioned something about bonuses.” Manning’s face grew serious. “Oh, and one other thing.”

Bolan instantly knew he wasn’t going to like it. “What’s that?”

“He’s taking the attempts on his life seriously, but at the same time, he’s not.”

Bolan had seen this before in very powerful men. “This is a game to him.”

“Guarding him isn’t going to be easy.” Manning leaned back in his chair. “What do you want me to tell him?”

Bolan glanced into his camera. “Bear?”

“Well I don’t exactly like it.” Kurtzman scratched his beard. “But this is exactly the kind of mysterious activity the president wanted investigated, that and keeping our billionaire’s brain inside his skull are both going to be easier to do from the inside. It’s your call, Striker, but I would say accept.”

Bolan made his decision. “Gary, tell Phil I’m excited about this plan and I’m thankful to be a part of it.”

THE EXECUTIONER WAS ON A PLANE to London when his laptop peeped at him. Bolan watched the codes scroll across the screen. Kurtzman was trying to contact him. Bolan keyed in his own codes and Kurtzman appeared on his screen. Bolan put his earbuds in place and opened an instant messaging window.

Kurtzman looked concerned. “We think we know your destination, at least generally,” he said.

That was quick, Bolan typed. Where?

“Tajikistan. MI6 intercepted chatter.”

Chatter from where? Bolan typed.

“From their agents in the People’s Republic of China.”

Bolan clicked some keys and brought up a map of Tajikistan. What’s the gist of the chatter?

“Nothing conclusive. The only thing that is certain is that the Chinese know about Phillip Eckhart’s endeavor. They knew where he was going before we did, and they seem to be keenly interested.”

How would the Chinese find out?

“We don’t know,” Kurtzman said.

I can only think of one reason why China would care, Bolan typed.

Kurtzman nodded. “Heroin.”

Bolan knew from hard experience that there were three major heroin production centers. One was in Latin America, based out of Mexico and Colombia. The second was Southeast Asia, with Myanmar being party central. The third was Southwest Asia, and Afghanistan was ground zero. Afghani heroin took two major overland routes. One was the Balkan route. Turkey was the anchor and from there it branched out through the Balkans to eastern and western Europe. The other path followed the ancient Silk Road to Russia, the Baltic states and other former Soviet republics. Tajikistan was a major gateway state of the Heroin Silk Route.

Bolan knew China had a new generation of billionaire venture capitalists who sailed the seas of international commerce like buccaneers, and Chinese Triads were still the biggest heroin merchants in the world. They got most of their product from Southeast Asia, but the new breed of Chinese businessmen and gangsters were nothing if not expansionist in outlook.

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban had done little to stop the Southwest Asian heroin trade, but many routes had been closed, many drug warlords had been toppled. The situation was in flux and there were vacuums to be filled. The Chinese underworld and the mostly off-the-leash venture capitalists were always looking for opportunity, and with the U.S. and coalition forces in a state of occupation in Afghanistan, having one of the richest and most influential men in America on your side could smooth smuggling matters considerably.

Kurtzman read Bolan’s mind. “The Pentagon is thinking the same thing, but I don’t buy it. A man who willingly lost millions in the gem trade over his moral issues just isn’t the guy who’s going to set himself up in the international trade in junk. He doesn’t need the money. I just don’t buy it.”

Bolan had to admit that he didn’t, either. He’d only spoken to Eckhart for a few seconds but the vibe was wrong, and if Gary Manning said Eckhart seemed to be a stand-up guy, Bolan was willing to trust the big Canadian’s instincts.

Okay, lets get back to archaeology. Dr. Klein and Nancy Rhynman both specialize in the ancient Greeks. Why would Eckhart be consulting them about Tajikistan? Bolan glanced at the map on his computer screen. That’s three thousand miles off course.

“It is a conundrum,” Kurtzman admitted. “You’re just going to have to take the meeting and then you can tell me.”

You have gear in place for me? Bolan typed.

“A man is going to meet you when you get off the plane and give you a key. Take a cab from the airport. There’s a storage facility a few miles down the road. You’ll have a map, the key and the account number. The storage unit has a Land Rover parked in it and everything you asked for and everything else we could think of on our end.”

Thanks, Bear, Bolan typed. Anything else pertinent?

“Yeah, I took Manning’s info and found our Gurkha. Lalbahadur Rai reached the rank of havildar, which is the equivalent of sergeant in the British Army. He served with the British Brigade of Gurkhas C Company, Second Battalion, Parachute Regiment. He served with distinction and when it came time to re-enlist he opted to go to work in the private sector for the firm Global Risks. He served from 2005 through 2007. What he did there is company classified. We can find out but it will take a dedicated hack and some time.”

That’s enough to start with. With any luck he and I are going to end up being allies, Bolan typed.

“So you have a plan?”

Yeah. Bolan checked his watch. Touchdown in London was another two hours away. I’m going to take a nap, eat the in-flight breakfast and then take a meeting with a billionaire.

3

London

The Endeavor team meeting was in ten minutes. Bolan had gotten off the plane, ignored the man in chauffeur livery holding the sign that read Matt Cooper, met his Stony Man contact, gotten a cab, gone to the storage facility and geared up. Phillip Eckhart was the kind of man who did everything right. He didn’t go in for gold-plated toothbrushes and diamond-studded toilets, but he did insist on quality. The Stafford Hotel was not the fanciest in London, it lacked amenities like an in-house spa and gym and the rooms were not palatial. What the Stafford had was class and many travelers considered it the best hotel in London. The eighty-room Edwardian town house was centrally located on a secluded street with its own private access to Green Park and it had service in spades.

Eckhart had been mildly surprised when the Executioner had walked into the bar and introduced himself as Matt Cooper. He had looked Bolan up and down like he might examine a new company’s prospectus and apparently liked what he saw. He told Bolan that his good buddy from Canada had recommended him highly and that was good enough for him. He’d handed Bolan a folder full of files and asked him to peruse it at his leisure before the private dinner meeting later.

Back in his room Bolan examined each personnel file, scanned it and then e-mailed it to the Farm. Phillip Eckhart had hired himself his own private army. The men were from all corners of the globe, but so were Eckhart’s business contacts, and he had told Bolan each man came highly recommended from one respected source or another. Just as Bolan had himself.

Bolan ran the files a second time. Each man had served in private military forces. If you had served in your national army with distinction, had a useful military specialty, or had the magic “Special Forces” moniker attached to your record you could earn, double, triple or even quadruple pay compared to regular military service. The opportunity to safeguard convoys, local royalty and political bigwigs, or bodyguard your occasional billionaire, could bring perks and social and business contacts beyond the wildest dreams of a regular serviceman.

Bolan flipped through the files. Each one included a photo, a brief of each man’s service record and his nickname written over his picture.

Vivian “Viv” Blackpool was an Englishman from the famous beach town of the same name. He had served in Her Majesty’s Royal Artillery. The file said he had been a forward observation officer. That meant his job was to creep behind enemy lines, find the enemy, radio back to the artillery and ground attack fighters and rain hell down on them. He’d won the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross in Afghanistan. He had a steel-wool-tight white man’s afro and a jaw like a lantern. Eckhart had written Scout on his file.

Gobun Yagi had been a rugby player for team Kobe Steel. He’d served with Japanese 1st Airborne and been deployed to Iraq. Japan didn’t have official Special Forces but Yagi had qualified for the Central Readiness Force that was their closest equivalent. He was deeply tanned, had a shag haircut with strands of silver in it and he was grinning good-naturedly in his file photo. Eckhart had written C³ over Yagi’s photo with a red pen. C cubed stood for communications, command and control. Bolan knew that meant Yagi would be trained in battlefield communications with radios, computers and satellites. Bolan noted the warrior had also been a hand-to-hand combat instructor.

The big American flipped to the next file.

Yuli Simutenkov was a Russian who had served in his nation’s 10th Mountain Brigade. He had done two tours in Chechnya then deserted. Bolan had a hard time blaming him. He had then managed to smuggle himself to Paris and joined the French Foreign Legion. Eckhart had used a yellow highlighter to emphasize that while Simutenkov was ethnically Russian he had been born in the city of Shaymak, which just happened to be the most eastern city in Tajikistan. His language proficiencies were also highlighted. He spoke Russian and his native Tajik as well as Kyrg, Arabic, Mandarin, English and French. He was blue-eyed, blunt-featured and had taken up the Russian military in-the-field habit of shaving his head and then letting his skull and beard stubble grow to same length. In his photo he was smiling in a not particularly friendly fashion with a hand-rolled cigarette dangling out of his mouth. Some of his teeth were gold, some were silver and some were missing. Eckhart had written Interpreter over his picture.

Bolan raised an eyebrow at the next photo. You didn’t hear about Hungarian mercenaries very often, but Zoltan “ZJ” Juhasz was a combat engineer who had served attached to the Hungarian 88th Rapid Reaction Force in Afghanistan. With his wavy black hair, arched eyebrows and Vandyke beard he looked like a Napoleonic Hussar, or Satan, or maybe just a man from Eastern Europe who enjoyed playing with explosives a little too much. Eckhart had written Demo Man!!! over the Hungarian’s head.

Bolan turned the page. Gilad Shlomo Gideon, or “Giddy” had served ten years with the Israeli Field Intelligence Corps. They were tasked with collecting combat intelligence in real time during battle, which meant that there was probably very little in the way of modern warfare the man had not seen or done. He was a wiry-looking guy with curls even tighter than Blackpool’s. Medic was scrawled above his picture. Bolan frowned. Interrogation was written below it. As a battlefield intelligence man Bolan suspected Gilad was skilled in keeping the wounded alive long enough to give up the goods.

He flipped to the next page. Pieter Van’s blond hair was almost white and his fair skin turned to saddle leather by years of fighting under the African sun. He had been a South African SAS commando and his resume read like a travelogue of every African trouble spot in the last twenty years. He’d worked security for several diamond consortiums in Africa that was undoubtedly where Eckhart had met him. Sniper was written and underlined on his photo.

Bolan turned over another wild card. Evo Solomon “Waqa” Waqa was Fijian. The man had a head like a block of granite and his hair was a series of two-inch, cone-shaped spikes that stuck up out of his head in remarkable imitation of Bart Simpson. Bolan noted his career highlights. He had been a member of Fiji’s infamous “Zulu” company counterrevolutionary specialists. The unit had been disbanded after elements of it had mutinied during the 2000 coup. Waqa had survived the purge and gone on to serve with the United Nations peace-keeping forces in East Timor. Over his name Eckhart had written Rai recommended, and Bolan recalled that five hundred Fijians had served or were serving with the Global Risks group in Iraq along with a similar number of Nepalese. Bolan doubted a Gurkha rifleman would recommend any non-Nepalese who couldn’t pass muster.

The last man was an American. He had blond hair and a blinding smile. He was grinning out of an American military ID photo and just from his neck and shoulders alone Bolan could tell the man had spent many hours pushing heavy iron in the gym. Roy Blair was 3rd Ranger Battalion. He’d been in Afghanistan then redeployed to Iraq. He then opted not to reenlist but had stayed in Iraq and gone to work for a private security company. Pig was written over his photo. That was Ranger-speak. There were two kinds of Rangers. “Maggots” were riflemen and “Pigs” were in the weapons squad. Roy Blair would know his way around machine guns, recoilless rifles, and antitank and antiaircraft weapons.

Bolan grunted in thin amusement at the last file. It had one word typed in quotes, center-spaced.

Cooper?

There was a hand-drawn smiley face beneath it.

There was another page that had a table with each man’s name and then a number of specialties checked off. Each man could ride a horse. Each man had qualified as expert or his national army’s equivalent with a rifle. Each man had passed courses in mountaineering and orienteering. Some men had specialty footnotes. Waqa, of all people, was a cook. Pieter could fly a helicopter and both Blackpool and Yuli could drive semis. Zoltan had Wrangler checked off by his name so the Hungarian probably knew something about the care and feeding of horses and he had been a Hungarian armed forces fencing champion. Roy Blair had attended the Defense Language Institute between deployments and learned basic Arabic. Yagi had done the Japanese equivalent and spoke Mandarin. Not surprisingly for a combat intelligence man in the Middle East, Giddy spoke Arabic as well as Farsi. Bolan’s line was empty so he checked off a few boxes that applied. He left out a lot. He’d demonstrate those abilities when and if the time came, and he’d give Eckhart his impressions after he’d had face time with each man.

Bolan closed the folder and grunted to himself. Eckhart had his own private little Foreign Legion and Bolan had joined it.

The Executioner checked the loads in his sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R. It was a .22 caliber conversion and had twenty-five rounds in the magazine plus one in chamber. He placed it in a shoulder holster under his left arm and four spare magazines rode under his right. Bolan pulled on a black leather jacket and went downstairs to the hotel’s private meeting room.

Sitting around the conference table were a billionaire, his bodyguard, a hot blonde and eight very dangerous men.

Eckhart gave Bolan a friendly wave and gestured at the one empty chair. “Coop! Glad you could join us. Take a seat.”

Bolan handed the file back to Eckhart and took the offered chair. He nodded to the Fijian and Hungarian sitting to either side of him.

Eckhart called the group to attention. “Gentlemen, let’s get started. First off, you will all find a nondisclosure contract in front of you, which I will require you to sign if you want to attend the rest of this meeting. If you don’t wish to sign, I’ll have to ask you to leave immediately.”

This was met by some muttering but Eckhart waved it away dismissively. “However, your rent here at the Stafford is paid ’til the end of the week, you have an open tab at the bar and your return tickets are open-ended. Thank you for coming.”

The soldiers made mollified noises.

Eckhart’s face became serious. “If you sign, stay and afterward do not wish to participate, you may leave. However, if you sign and then break the nondisclosure contract and talk about what is discussed in this room outside of the Endeavor Team here assembled, you will be subject to the kind of lawyers and lawsuits only a billionaire can bring on. And, short of hiring hit men, I will use every legal, political and business contact I have to shit on you for the rest of your lives. I strongly urge you to think about that before you sign.”

No one had to think about it. A couple of the men made a pretense of flipping through the pages of legalese but everyone quickly signed. Rai collected the contracts and put them in a folder.

“Good.” Eckhart rapped his knuckles on the table and on cue two of the hotel staff staggered in carrying buckets of beers from around the world on ice. The arrival was met with cheers. Bolan smiled inwardly. Alcohol had been part of successful soldier recruitment since the Renaissance. Beers were passed around the table and Bolan picked himself out a Guinness.

“Gentlemen, may I introduce Nancy Rhynman,” Eckhart continued. “She’ll be part of our team.”

A chorus of whistles and catcalls greeted the news. Bolan noted Rhynman blushed slightly and smiled at the barrage of lewd suggestions but she didn’t seem intimidated.

“Most of you have probably heard of me,” Eckhart said.

This was met with some pointed comments that Eckhart ignored. “And as you may have heard every once in a while I go off on an endeavor in the name of science. Africa, the Amazon, Southeast Asia, I’ve had a few adventures around the globe and been on a few boondoggles.” Eckhart eyed the assembled soldiers wryly. “As I suspect have most of you.”

The comment was met by grunts of agreement.

Eckhart spread his hands in mock helplessness. “Well, I’m off on another one! And it’s going to require stepped-up security. That’s where you men come in.”

Waqa leaned back and frowned impatiently. The chair creaked ominously beneath his massive frame. “What’s the job, brah?”

Eckhart nodded to Rhynman. “Nancy?”

The soldiers sighed as she rose and they approved of the way her lightweight wool pants clung to her curves. She clicked a remote control and a projector showed a map on the wall that stretched from Spain to Hong Kong. “This is the modern world.” She clicked the remote again and nearly all the cities disappeared. “This is the ancient world.” Nancy clicked her remote again. “And this was the world of Alexander the Great.”

The map lit up in highlight from Mount Olympus in Western Greece to the Himalayas.

“As you may or may not remember from your school days, Alexander and his army conquered all the way across what is today modern Turkey, Iraq and Iran. His conquests spread from—”

“Jesus, here comes the History Channel.” Blair’s boots thudded on top of the table as he rocked back in his chair. “Can’t you make this more entertaining?”

“Take off your clothes!” Waqa suggested.

Eckhart held up his hand. “Guys…”

“Da!” Yuli produced a one-hundred-pound note. “Dance! Dance on table!”

Blair spread his feet on the table. “Lap dance!”

Eckhart might have been a billionaire and a captain of industry but he suddenly found himself in a room full of rowdy soldiers whose respect he hadn’t earned. “Gentlemen, I—” he stammered.

“Show us your tits!” Waqa shouted.

Again Bolan noticed that Nancy wasn’t scared, embarrassed or intimidated. She was quietly and coldly becoming furious. He saw an opportunity to get on her good side. He picked his victim. His voice cut through the cacophony of sexual harassment and hilarity.

“Yo, Waqa.”

Waqa grinned and cracked himself another beer. “Yeah, brah?”

“I’ve got no money in my pocket, a bucket of beer I haven’t finished and I need this job.” The room went dead silent as Bolan’s arctic blue eyes bored into Waqa’s. His voice was as serious as the grave. “Don’t screw this up.”

The Fijian was clearly not used to being challenged but he found himself taken aback and blinking at Bolan’s glacial gaze. “Shit, I’m just having some fun,” he said.

Pieter Van spoke like the elder statesman of the group. “Enough of this kak. I too need a job, and I would like to hear what Miss Rhynman and Mr. Eckhart have to say.” He spoke with the authority of a veteran commander. “I believe those who do not need the work already know the location of the door.”

An awkward silence fell across the table.

Bolan noticed Rhynman staring at him. She wasn’t beaming in gratitude. She was taking mental notes. Bolan reminded himself that she was a body language expert as well as an archaeologist. He suspected she would be writing assessments of every soldier around the table to add to Eckhart’s personnel files.

“So, Miss Rhynman,” Pieter said. “Alexander the Great?”

“Let me summarize,” Rhynman said. “Alexander the Great conquered a big chunk of real estate. Wherever he went he built Alexandrias, cities that bore his name, and he left generals and trusted companions to command and rule from them. To this day ancient Greek artifacts and even ruins turn up all over this territory from Egypt to India.”

The men were beginning to roll their eyes and look at one another in disbelief. The blonde scholar looked around the room and could tell she was losing her audience. “What we are looking for is the Citadel of Hades,” she announced.

That got everyone’s attention.

“What the fuck?” Blair asked.

“We’re looking for a hidden fortress. Farther east than any historian believes Alexander ever got. A lost citadel gentlemen, perhaps the last great classical archaeological find that remains undiscovered. Right on par with the pyramids of Egypt and the Coliseum of Rome.”

The soldiers looked at one another and didn’t know what to think.

Eckhart began his pitch. “Men, I’ve recently been doing some investing in western Asia. Wherever I am I’m always looking into the local antiquities market. I was in Tajikistan when some Greek writings literally fell into my hands. The seller was a local tribesman who had no idea what he had. When I began to suspect what I’d found I contacted Nancy, and she contacted scholars she knew in the field, and it appears to be genuine.”

Giddy peered at Eckhart with genuine interest. “What did you find?”

Eckhart was positively smug. “The writings of Gorgidas of Thebes.”

Yagi spoke for the first time. “I do not know what that means.”

Rhynman took over. “Alexander wanted to be remembered. He wanted his accomplishments to be heralded throughout the ages. So he took Greek scribes along with him wherever he went. The scribe these writings are attributed to, Gorgidas, wasn’t very famous as Greek writers went. Much of his writing was considered trivial and catalogued day-to-day goings-on in camp and on the march. He was almost a glorified accountant. But for some reason Alexander took Gorgidas with him when he went on a secret journey to the Citadel of Hades, and Gorgidas recorded the trip.”

“Citadel of Hades,” Bolan said, adopting a relaxed pose. “I never went to college but doesn’t that mean Citadel of Hell?”

Rhynman shook her head. “Close, but not quite. Hades is the Underworld, but in Greek mythology it’s a dark and gloomy place rather than the Christian Hell. Gorgidas speaks of ‘a house of weeping columns with walls of glittering stone’ in his writings.”

Bolan took the obvious leap of logic. “So it’s a cave.”

“Yes.” Nancy Rhynman favored Bolan with a smile. “In the metaphor of the day a Citadel of Hades would imply a subterranean fortress. Weeping columns could mean stalagmites and stalactites, and walls of glittering stone most likely would refer to quartz formations that happen to be rampant in our target area. Many cultures throughout the ages have taken natural-occurring cave complexes and dug citadels and fortresses within them. Those of you who have fought in Afghanistan know the entire region is riddled with caverns. We have no idea how old this citadel might be, but it was most likely built or inherited by the Persian Achaemenid Empire, and when Alexander conquered them it appears he received access to it. Think of it, a hidden citadel, and secret refuge, a—”

“A fortress of solitude?” Blackpool suggested. “Has he got one at the North Pole, too, then?”

Rhynman smiled but her eyes went cold. “‘Fortress of solitude’ might not be a bad metaphor. If the Citadel is there it’s way off the beaten path. Nothing in the way of agriculture or civilization was anywhere close. Resources in the Pamir Mountains are scarce. It might well be a fortress of solitude, Mr. Blackpool. A place where people were sent into exile or went to hide during wars of succession.” Rhynman leaned slightly forward, fixed Blackpool in place with her eyes and raised one eyebrow in challenge. “Or it might also be a place to store unimaginable wealth.”

Waqa leaned forward. “You’re talking like treasure and shit.”

“Yes, Mr. Waqa,” Rhynman confirmed. “Treasure and shit. Wherever Alexander went he demanded tribute, and the Persian Empire of Darius was the richest in the world. Much of the vast wealth that Alexander took was never accounted for. Undoubtedly a great deal was stolen by his successors after his death and the breakup of his empire. But there is enough accounting in the archaeological record to suggest that huge amounts of it were hidden and only Alexander and a few of his closest confederates knew its whereabouts.

“Alexander died suddenly without settling his affairs. The fact is there is the possibility of gold, silver, gems and jewels being stored in this location by the ton. Not to mention a priceless archaeological trove of writings, sculptures, tools, weapons and fabrics—with luck all perfectly preserved in the subterranean environment. The Tajik government will most likely try to claim most of it as natural heritage.” Nancy Rhynman’s smile became predatory. “But our employer pretty much has the ability to buy Tajikistan lock, stock and barrel.”

This was met by harsh, renewed laughter.

Rhynman waited for it to die down. “And even if there’s nothing there but bare rock, just finding the Citadel will be the greatest archaeological discovery of this century. You’ll all be famous. All the news agencies will pay to interview you. We’re talking TV, radio, Internet and printed press. All of you will be heroes in your native countries. There will be movie rights, book rights, you name it, and Mr. Eckhart is willing to extend to you free financial advisement to make the most of all opportunities that you may accrue from this endeavor.”

There was silence around the table.

Eckhart filled it. “And if all we find is scorpions and dirt, I’m still paying a thousand dollars a day.” The billionaire smiled. “So, who’s in?”

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