It was a desperate plan that required perfect timing

The Land Rover lurched forward an inch and Bolan pressed harder on the brake pedal, his muscles cramping under the strain. Drops of stinging sweat trickled into his eyes as he waited patiently for his enemies. Despite the agony that screamed from within his arm and shoulder, he willed himself to push harder.

The SUV suddenly appeared, coming fast around the curve. A split second later it was in front of the grotto, its engine racing against the elevation. Bolan released the brake and fell back as his vehicle surged forward, smashing into the SUV’s passenger side.

Shrieks of twisting metal and screaming tires filled the air.

The two vehicles plunged over the edge of the cliff, falling through the air for three or four long seconds before crashing onto the rocks below. There was a brief silence before both cars exploded, sending sound waves that merged and echoed as one across the Irish countryside.

Bolan rose from his position and peered over the edge. He had won this particular battle—but the Executioner had no doubt that this war was just beginning.

MACK BOLAN ®

The Executioner

#270 Judgment Day

#271 Cyberhunt

#272 Stealth Striker

#273 UForce

#274 Rogue Target

#275 Crossed Borders

#276 Leviathan

#277 Dirty Mission

#278 Triple Reverse

#279 Fire Wind

#280 Fear Rally

#281 Blood Stone

#282 Jungle Conflict

#283 Ring of Retaliation

#284 Devil’s Army

#285 Final Strike

#286 Armageddon Exit

#287 Rogue Warrior

#288 Arctic Blast

#289 Vendetta Force

#290 Pursued

#291 Blood Trade

#292 Savage Game

#293 Death Merchants

#294 Scorpion Rising

#295 Hostile Alliance

#296 Nuclear Game

#297 Deadly Pursuit

#298 Final Play

#299 Dangerous Encounter

#300 Warrior’s Requiem

#301 Blast Radius

#302 Shadow Search

#303 Sea of Terror

#304 Soviet Specter

#305 Point Position

#306 Mercy Mission

#307 Hard Pursuit

#308 Into the Fire

#309 Flames of Fury

#310 Killing Heat

#311 Night of the Knives

#312 Death Gamble

#313 Lockdown

#314 Lethal Payload

#315 Agent of Peril

#316 Poison Justice

#317 Hour of Judgment

#318 Code of Resistance

#319 Entry Point

#320 Exit Code

#321 Suicide Highway

#322 Time Bomb

#323 Soft Target

#324 Terminal Zone

#325 Edge of Hell

#326 Blood Tide

#327 Serpent’s Lair

#328 Triangle of Terror

#329 Hostile Crossing

#330 Dual Action

#331 Assault Force

#332 Slaughter House

#333 Aftershock

#334 Jungle Justice

#335 Blood Vector

#336 Homeland Terror

#337 Tropic Blast

#338 Nuclear Reaction

#339 Deadly Contact

#340 Splinter Cell

#341 Rebel Force

#342 Double Play

#343 Border War

#344 Primal Law

#345 Orange Alert

The Executioner ®

Orange Alert

Don Pendleton

Peace is produced by war.

—Latin Proverb

I continue my fight in order to preserve peace.

—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

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

Prologue

A cloud passed in front of the moon, and the moors became so dark Steven Oxford couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face, much less the outlines of the three men who stood in the ankle-high grass with him. The wind picked up from the east, gusting across Lake Erne, carrying with it the earthy scent of peat and a chill that penetrated Oxford’s heavy black wool sweater and the long-sleeved cotton T-shirt he wore underneath. Even in July, the moors between Donegal Bay and the lakes became uncomfortably cold at night.

In a belt holster tucked into the small of his back, Oxford carried a Glock 17, the standard handgun issued to CIA operatives.

A few months earlier, during his annual requalification, Oxford had placed ten of the seventeen 9 mm rounds into a two-and-a-half-inch circle at twenty-five yards—exactly twice the quantity required. Oxford was a man who liked to keep track of those details even more than the CIA did. His office walls at Langley were covered with citations and certifications, all arranged in precise chronological order.

The cloud passed, exposing the moon’s thin crescent, enabling the outlines of the waiting men to become discernable as blobs of deeper darkness against the sepia blanket that cloaked the moors. Oxford’s three companions were also dressed in black, their features highlighted by the silvery illumination, giving the impression that their faces floated like decapitated heads in ghostly search of their lost bodies.

A freight train rumbled in the distance, one of many that traveled the railroad tracks crisscrossing the moors. Barely audible above the clack and clatter of the passing train was the howl of a dog—a mournful sound that echoed over the wasteland to be answered a few seconds later by another of its species. Had Oxford been superstitious, the wail would have sent a shiver down his spine. But neither superstition nor fear were words in the agent’s vocabulary. Despite standing on a moor in the middle of the night in an Irish county where half the population over sixty years of age swore to personal knowledge of banshees, he was confident that he and the Glock could handle whatever came their way.

He took a swift, visual inventory of his companions. Bobbie Reegan was clearly the most dangerous, driven by a hate so fiery his eyes sometimes glowed as if lit from behind. The other two were no more than common thugs, losers drawn to the Orange Order in much the same way that Oxford thought skin-heads were attracted to organizations spewing white supremacy. Political motives, if considered at all, were secondary. Blacks, Catholics, Jews, it didn’t matter whose blood they were spilling—it was the actual hate and killing that pulled them in.

The night’s meeting with Cypher would be an important one. He’d said they’d be assigned their targets and given half the money, which meant that Oxford’s undercover assignment was coming to an end. Once Cypher doled out the actual missions, it was Oxford’s time to fish or cut bait, to convey all the intel to his superiors and move on.

Oxford felt, rather than saw or heard, Cypher’s arrival. There was a slight compression of air, and he and his sidekick were suddenly in their midst.

As they had for the previous three meets, Cypher and his companion wore ski masks that covered everything but their eyes and mouths, making them look not ghostly, but more like the Cheshire cat.

Oxford turned his full attention to the new arrivals. Even the extreme darkness could not hide the physical bulk of the man who accompanied Cypher. His widely spaced eyes and mouth floated a good six inches above everyone else’s, and the patch of deeper darkness representing his body’s volume was twice that of Reegan’s. Oxford recalled that at the group’s very first meeting, the man had moved his muscular frame in a threatening manner that told everyone he was no stranger to the martial arts. This guy, Oxford thought again while tapping his molars together as if the chilly air was making him shiver, was obviously a bodyguard.

Cypher came immediately to the point, speaking in a rustling voice reminiscent of leaves being blown across a brick courtyard in winter.

“The committee has chosen targets. Randolph’s cell is first,” he said, as if everyone in Ireland was privy to the classified knowledge that Peter Randolph was head of a special group of CIA operatives whose mission was to coordinate the defection of former Soviet scientists.

Randolph’s cell? The words took Oxford by surprise.

Although the splinter group had been formed a short three months earlier with the four members supposedly being handpicked by Cypher himself, Oxford had infiltrated the Orange Order more than a year before, and there had never been any talk of directing violence against anyone except the Catholics. What was driving this shift in tactics? he wondered.

“Reegan,” Cypher stated, “you’ll be the one to hit Randolph. He’s on holiday now, but he’ll be back at his home base in Stuttgart starting next week, and we’re thinking that will be the best place to do it. We’ll give you everything you need.”

Reegan grunted his understanding.

Accompanied by the crinkling sound of paper, Cypher said, “Here’s an envelope with half your money. You’ll get the rest when you do the job.”

Oxford heard Reegan stuff the payment into his pants pocket. He was amazed at what Cypher was saying. Not only were these guys planning to hit the CIA, they apparently had access to company information. Randolph’s supervisor should have been the only person to know when one of his active operatives was taking vacation. Was there a leak in security? And if there was, how far up the chain did it go?

Oxford tapped his molars together while contemplating the impact of Cypher’s words. If the plan was to kill everyone in the cell, he had to warn Randolph about the three operatives he knew were carried on his roster.

“Taylor, Buckley and Johnston will also be hit this week.”

Oxford heard Cypher say their names as a strong arm suddenly clasped him from behind, and in one swift move snatched the Glock from his belt holster. Too late, he realized, he had failed to notice Cypher’s bodyguard slipping behind him. He pushed with all his might, attempting to expand his shoulders to open enough space for an elbow jab, but the arm around him was like an iron vise.

The huge man squeezed, and Oxford’s breath was driven from his lungs. He saw stars and thought for a moment he was blacking out, but the moment passed, and he drew a shallow breath that kept him conscious.

“There’s a traitor in our group,” Cypher said in a dry voice.

There were two poisonous darts in Oxford’s wristwatch, each loaded with a derivative of venom produced by central eastern Australia’s inland taipan, the most lethal viper in the world. Scientists at the CIA had refined the toxin, creating a poison hundreds of times more deadly. The result was a substance powerful enough to bestow upon a tiny dart the capability to deliver almost immediate death.

Held as he was, Oxford was unable to reach the watch’s trigger button with his right hand. His mind racing, he realized that, if he could knock his shoes together, the blade inside his right heel would snap into place, and he’d be able to stab his captor’s shin.

Like a movie viewed in fast forward, the scenario flashed through the agent’s mind. Reacting to the unexpected stab to his leg, the bodyguard would release him and, in less than two seconds, both he and Cypher would feel the prick of death stored inside the wristwatch. Oxford could quickly dispatch the other three, barehanded if necessary.

As if the huge man could read his thoughts, Oxford was suddenly thrown forward into the darkness. He landed on his knees, spinning immediately upon hitting the ground while reaching for his left wrist.

Excruciating pain, the likes of which he had never exprienced, shot through Oxford’s arm and into his brain as a 9 mm round from his own weapon smashed into the watch and continued through his wrist, leaving his hand dangling by a few bloody tendons. Ever the professional, the first impression to register in his mind above the searing agony was that the bodyguard must have slipped on night goggles to make such a shot.

His second thought, coming nanoseconds after the first, was to get the hell out of there.

Oxford lunged and took two quick steps before a round caught him in the back of the knee, blowing his patella onto the ground before him in a shower of bone chips and blood. He pitched forward, writhing in pain so intense that he lost awareness of all other sensations. The cold ground rushed up as he slammed onto his face, breathing raggedly, inhaling small bits of dirt laced with a peaty residue that tasted of decay.

A heavy boot smashed into his side, taking his breath away and flipping him onto his back. Oxford fought hard to keep from passing out. He knew he was about to die, and he wanted to be fully aware when it happened, facing death head-on, the way a warrior would.

Cypher’s bodyguard loomed over him. High above the Irish countryside, the sliver of the moon shimmered, illuminating the short barrel of Oxford’s Glock as the cold steel was pressed against his forehead.

In the distance, an animal wailed. Cypher said, “We’ll see who comes for him,” and there was a brilliant flash of white light that ended the CIA agent’s life.

1

Mack Bolan listened to the rhythmic signal coming through his earpiece. The cadence was strong and steady. As he got closer the beat would get faster and, during his final one hundred yards, the pitch would change if he veered off course. Judging from the spacing between notes, Bolan knew his objective was a ways off, maybe as far as three miles.

When the GPS finally led him to within one yard of the tiny transmitter implanted inside agent Oxford’s molar, Bolan’s earpiece would begin to hum a steady tone.

As he listened to the steady electronic pulse, the soldier was confident that the system would lead him directly to his goal.

In keeping with his practice for night missions, Bolan’s six-foot-three-inch frame was dressed entirely in black, from his jump boots that trod silently across the hard ground of the moors, to the knitted wool hat that covered his closely cut hair. The green-black-and-brown jungle camouflage he had smeared on the high points of his hawkish features absorbed the silvery sheen of moonlight, rendering him invisible against the dark countryside.

On his hip he wore a .44-caliber Desert Eagle and, in the pouches attached to the web belt, he carried, among other items, several clips of ammunition.

A holster on his left shoulder held a 9 mm Beretta 93-R, and a foot-long Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife rested in a weathered black leather sheath strapped to the outside of his right calf.

The man some called the Executioner didn’t know if he would actually need the weapons he carried, but he had been walking the hellfire trail too long to approach any mission unrepared. Despite the tranquil appearance the Irish countryside offered, a CIA agent had lost his life three nights earlier, and, to Bolan, that made the area a combat zone. More than once, Bolan had seen supposedly cold spots turn unexpectedly hot in seconds. He hadn’t survived all these years by being careless. Parking his rental car more than two miles away and coming in on foot was only the first precaution.

The Irish coast near the Ulster border was rugged country, with narrow, winding roads twisting through bowl-shaped contours of land extending from Lake Erne to Donegal Bay. In the daylight, views, at times, were nothing short of spectacular as the trails meandering through barren moors suddenly emerged upon sheep-studded pastures, so intensely green they were almost blinding. Immediately south of the moors, where Bolan had parked his car under the cover of a thin stand of hickory trees, the way became treacherous, perilously clinging to the sides of cliffs rising straight up from the sea where, hundreds of feet below, angry surf pounded the craggy coastline. Small religious shrines were carved at irregular intervals into the side of the rock walls to commemorate locations where fugitive priests had celebrated Mass during the British repression.

The trouble here had started, as so many conflicts in the history of man have, over religion. Protestant against Catholic, both sides killing for Christ, with the escalating violence over a period of more than two generations spawning the Orange Order, the IRA and twenty or thirty splinter groups, each with its own vision of tomorrow’s Ireland. For the most part, the rest of the world had ignored the conflict. A bunch of Irishmen killing each other on their tiny island way up in the North Atlantic didn’t threaten world stability the way an outbreak of war in the oil rich Middle East would.

Under normal circumstances, a man like Mack Bolan wouldn’t have been the one called into Ireland for a CIA find-and-retrieve mission, but the communiqué had been sent straight up the chain of command to the director of Homeland Security, who’d immediately alerted the President of its contents. The chief executive had decided he wanted someone with no traceable ties to a government agency, The call had gone out on a secured line to Hal Brognola at the Justice Department.

“They have to take it seriously,” Brognola had said later that day when he’d met Bolan on the National Mall in the shadow of the Museum of Natural History. They’d been walking west along Madison Drive, the domed Capitol building at their backs gleaming a brilliant white in the light from the afternoon sun.

The big Fed had continued. “This is much more than just an agent getting murdered, Striker. A terrorist group threatening to assassinate cabinet members? Jesus. The President wants someone to help assess how credible these people are.”

Brognola was fully aware of the Bolan’s arm’s-length relationship with the government, but he also knew that the soldier had never refused a request from his old friend. Brognola’s agenda usually was in tune with the Executioner’s. But Bolan would decide on his own whether or not to accept the mission.

Bolan had remained silent, studying the transcript he’d been reading as they’d walked.

“What’s this about another 9/11?” he asked.

“That’s the part that has the President most concerned,” Brognola answered. “The CIA doesn’t need any help dealing with these guys if they’re just a bunch of crackpots trying to make a statement. But, if what we’re up against is an organized terrorist cell with the capability to carry out those threats, we have to know who they are, and we have to know it now. All the President wants you to do is to get the CIA pointed in the right direction.”

It had been the part about another September 11 that had convinced Bolan to take the assignment.

He had met with Edmund Fontes, the director of CIA activities in Ireland, who’d reluctantly given him Steven Oxford’s final field report. In it, the late agent had described Cypher and the terrorist cell the mysterious man was forming, but there was no mention of any targets other than Catholic organizations in Ireland.

“He was one of my best,” Fontes had said tersely while handing Bolan the report, “and, if it was up to me, we’d go in and get him, ourselves. This is our job, and we don’t like someone else doing it.”

Bolan took no umbrage at the CIA man’s resentment. The way he received missions all but guaranteed that he’d be treading on someone else’s turf from the minute he showed up. He’d go in, get the microchip for Brognola, the one Oxford had in a back molar, and see what developed from there.

Now, twenty-four hours after saying he’d take the assignment, he was on-site, closing in on his objective.

An animal howled in the distance, and Bolan paused to take his bearings. Close by, a freight train rumbled over tracks on its way to the industrialized areas to the north.

The homing signal’s beat suddenly picked up, and Bolan’s senses went on full alert. With the terrain’s undulating dips and swells dotted with sparse patches of tall bushes and wind-blown hickory trees, the area was perfect for an ambush.

Bolan walked quickly, his eyes scanning the darkness, his free ear processing a steady flow of sounds. Noise carried well over the moors. Not as well as over water, where the crack of a gunshot could carry for miles.

He heard them before they were aware of his presence. A metallic click lasting no more than a millisecond rode to his ears on the night’s currents. It might have been the sound of a buckle that hadn’t been taped, or a snap fastening someone’s top collar against the breeze, but to a soldier with Bolan’s honed senses, it just as well could have been a bullhorn announcing their location.

Dropping to one knee, he reached into the pouch on his web belt containing his night-vision goggles. As he adjusted the goggles on his face, Bolan turned off his earpiece. He’d deal with the ambush first, then locate Oxford. From the signal he had been getting and the direction he thought the errant sound came from, his greeting party appeared to be positioned close to his objective.

Bolan focused the goggles, bringing the moors into sharp relief. There was a flurry of movement off to his left as a pair of jackrabbits dodged and sprinted their way through the underbrush. He scanned from left to right, pausing at every patch of bushes and trees, watching for unnatural movement. A halo of light flared briefly, the flame of a cigarette lighter magnified tens of thousands of times as its photons passed through the photocathode tube of his goggles.

Amateurs, Bolan thought. Undisciplined, untrained amateurs.

He switched the goggles to infrared mode, and the scene before him shimmered slightly as he painted the landscape with IR. Three men were positioned in a clump of trees about a hundred yards off to his right, their figures clear and distinct against the cooler foliage. A slight spiral extended upward from the man who was smoking, his cigarette heating the air directly above him.

Bolan removed the goggles and returned them to their pouch. The men waiting for him obviously knew that Oxford was wearing a transmitter that would lead someone to his remains. Did they also know that he had been a CIA plant? And, if they did, what were their intentions now for the man who came to retrieve him?

Regardless of what they had been planning, the Executioner thought they were about to get more than they’d bargained for.

He rose into a crouch and set off, as silent as an owl swooping from above to snatch unsuspecting prey. When he finally got to a point about twenty yards behind them and they became visible in the dim light, he lowered himself again to one knee and took note of how the three were set up. He figured they would be facing his objective. He switched the earpiece back on.

The beat was coming in as an almost steady tone, and the note had changed, indicating Bolan was slightly off center. Before turning the signal off, he mentally extrapolated the sound with his position and that of the ambush, arriving at a spot about fifty yards from where he thought Oxford’s body would be buried.

He withdrew a powerful penlight from his front shirt pocket and rotated the lens to produce a beam. Sliding the Desert Eagle from its holster, he stood and took a step forward.

“Everyone freeze!” he shouted in a voice full of authority as he held it out at a full arm’s length to the left of his body.

The three men, suddenly illuminated, simultaneously made the wrong decision. As the two men flanking the third threw themselves to the ground, the man in the middle turned and fired a pistol, the round snapping the air directly beneath Bolan’s penlight, which he switched off while lunging to his right. In midair, he squeezed the Desert Eagle’s trigger once, and the throaty roar of the weapon delivered instant death to his attacker as the heavy round slammed through the man’s chest, exiting through his back in a messy hole the size of a heavyweight’s fist.

Bolan rolled quickly as bullets from the other two gunmen sliced the air where he had been a split second earlier. Using one of the muzzle-flashes for a target, Bolan fired two shots so close together that they echoed across the moors as a single retort. He immediately heard the heavy thump of a body being hammered into hard earth, and all was still.

Continuing his roll to the right, Bolan strained his ears for the sound of his enemy’s breathing. In the sudden silence, he could hear it—raspy and quick. The man was off to his left, about ten yards away, and apparently still standing upright.

Bolan considered taking him alive in order to gain some intel about the communiqué. Before he could initiate his next move, however, panic apparently got the better of his adversary, who abruptly let loose with a barrage of automatic pistol fire aimed a full four feet above Bolan. With the shooter illuminated by his series of quick muzzle-blasts, Bolan zeroed in from his prone position and fired once, drilling a hole through the man’s gut. The force of the Eagle’s .44-caliber punch threw the hardman four feet and he crumpled into a lifeless heap, oozing intestines that shimmered and shone black in the intermittent moonlight.

Like most firefights, this one had been quick and violent.

The acrid smell of cordite hung heavy in the air, mingling with the fresh stink of death that filled Bolan’s nostrils. He remained in his prone position, listening intently for any sound of life. After a good thirty seconds, he rose to his full height. Holding the penlight out to his left again, he switched it on.

All three men were dead.

Bolan quickly scanned the area, anxious to complete his mission. There was no vehicle, which meant that these men had either left their means of transportation somewhere and walked to the site as Bolan had, or they had been dropped off by other team members who were still very much alive.

In the beam of his penlight, tire tracks were visible in the dirt, confirming Bolan’s worst-case hunch. He rushed forward to check the bodies, intent on removing any identification they might be carrying. As he patted down the first corpse, he noticed the gleam of a silver chain around the man’s neck. With the same motion he had used more often than he wanted to remember when pulling the dog tags from a fallen comrade, Bolan snapped the chain free and stuffed it into his pants pocket. He continued checking the body for identification, and, finding none, moved on to the other two with the same results. None carried ID of any kind, but all three had worn a medal around their necks.

Turning his back to the bodies, Bolan switched his earpiece receiver back on. The signal was strong and steady, and as he sprinted to the spot he had selected before the firefight broke out, the tone became solid. In the moonlight, Bolan could see the dim outline that had the correct dimensions for a shallow grave. When he stood over it, the earpiece told him he had found his mark.

He pulled the foot-long combat knife from its sheath and plunged it into the soft earth. Just as the hilt touched ground, the tip of the blade made contact. In the distance, Bolan could hear a new sound—the steady drone of a vehicle that sounded big. He didn’t know for sure how distant it was, but the way sound traveled over the moors, he thought he had at least five minutes before it would reach him. He began to claw at the grave, moving the loose soil to both sides. In less than a minute, he reached the body. Holding the penlight with his teeth, he saw that luck was with him—the end he had chosen to clear exposed Oxford’s head, the upper portion above the agent’s eyebrows mangled and singed around the edges by the point-blank shot that had taken his life. The bottom half of his face was smeared with dirt and, after three days in the grave, swollen beyond recognition.

Leaning forward, Bolan grabbed the corpse’s head and brushed the dirt away from its mouth. Placing the point of his combat knife at a spot directly beneath Oxford’s earlobe, he opened the agent’s cheek with a quick forward slice, revealing teeth that shone like pearls in the penlight’s beam. In the back of the dead man’s throat, insects scurried to escape the sudden illumination.

Bolan pushed the flap of bloodless skin away so he could insert the tip of his blade under the last molar. In the back of his mind, he was aware that the vehicle was drawing closer, coming slowly due to the winding roads, but approaching, nevertheless, at a steady pace. As he twisted the knife’s handle and the dead agent’s tooth popped free, Bolan wondered what had prompted its approach. Whether it was responding to the sound of gunfire traveling a great distance through the clear still night, or a missed call-in from the men waiting in ambush, the result was the same—there was no time to retrieve Oxford’s remains. But Bolan had the most important thing he had come for and he could mark the body’s location for a future pickup by placing his earpiece with the corpse.

He dropped the extracted molar into the same pocket containing the chains he had taken from his would-be ambushers, shoved his earpiece down the front of Oxford’s blood-enrusted sweater and hurriedly pushed the dirt back over the body. Just as he was finishing, he caught the glimpse of approaching headlights winding their way down the side of the shallow bowl-shaped valley less than a quarter of a mile away.

After smoothing the earth back over the shallow grave, he ran at full speed for a stand of trees and thick bushes about a hundred yards away. He had progressed less than ten feet into the woods when an SUV burst out of the adjacent hillside pasture onto the flat land of the moors, and the night was suddenly filled with the eardrum-splitting sounds of AK-47s chattering in full-automatic mode.

The air surrounding Bolan became a deadly beehive of activity as bullets whizzed by with the distinctive snaps of 7.62 mm bullets. He dived to the ground, scrambling for cover.

2

The furious fusillade ended abruptly, and Bolan heard the distinctive metallic rattling of empty magazines being ejected, followed by the slide and click of new ones being rammed home. In the sudden silence, rendered more profound by its extreme contrast to the deafening uproar from the AK-47s that still echoed in his brain, a wide beam of blinding light painted the trees and thick bushes with broad strokes, sweeping back and forth through the stretch of woods like a prison spotlight.

From his prone position in a tiny depression behind a stout hickory, Bolan flexed his legs in preparation for his departure. He peered through the lush foliage, inches above ground level, to where the SUV stood like an alien being, its modern technology seeming anachronistic against the barren landscape.

Accompanied by the racing sound of its powerful engine, the vehicle spun in a cloud of dust, casting its lights onto the ambush site littered with three bodies. As Bolan moved in a crouch through the woods to put distance between himself and the new arrivals, he heard the opening of a door followed by loud cursing in a thick brogue. A quick burst of automatic fire sliced through the trees at least fifty yards to his left. It was an obvious gesture of anger and frustration, and it reinforced Bolan’s earlier opinion that his opponents were deficient in both their training and discipline. This lack of professionalism would be a factor he’d leverage to his advantage when they finally clashed again, which was bound to happen sooner or later.

The SUV wasn’t able to follow him through the trees, but Bolan knew that the stand would eventually end and he’d find himself at the edge of a sheep pasture somewhere with no available cover. If the men in the vehicle were locals, they’d know the place where the woods ended, and that’s where they’d be waiting.

Crouching behind a thick tree, Bolan checked his watch for the time: 2:30 a.m. The summer equinox had occurred a scant two weeks earlier, which meant that, at this time of year, sunrise came quickly to the regions up around the fifty-fifth parallel. The area was at about the same latitude as Glasgow, where dawn would break around four-thirty. Bolan didn’t know how long it would take him to reach the tracks where he’d heard the trains rumbling, but he thought it would be to his advantage to get there before daybreak.

As he made his way through the woods, Bolan recalled the information contained in the second communiqué that had been delivered to the local CIA office and forwarded to the President. The Apprentices, a rogue splinter group claiming to be sponsored by the Orange Order, was demanding immediate disarmament of the IRA, and international recognition for the legitimacy of home rule in Belfast. Once and for all, they wanted the world—and especially the United States—to endorse the existence of two nations in Ireland and to formally declare that there was no chance the two would ever be united. Once and for all, they wanted to end the Irish conflict, and they were prepared to use terrorism to force the result.

They further said they were about to release a list of prominent Catholics, whose assassinations were being scheduled to occur until the process of IRA disarmament was complete. And, finally, they were threatening the United States with a domestic terrorist attack if their demands were not met by the end of July. That gave the CIA less than a month to find and destroy the people behind the plot.

It was an insane scenario, made viable by the global terrorism that had spread like a runaway cancer since the fateful assault on New York’s World Trade Center.

As Bolan pushed forward toward the sounds of distant trains, one thing was clear in his mind—any mission that prevented another terrorist attack on the United States was worth his involvement.

The Executioner had been deployed, and he was prepared to give as good as he got.

BOLAN ARRIVED AT THE TRAIN tracks as the first suggestions of predawn light were touching the eastern sky. He estimated he was eight or nine miles away from where he had left his car, but, luckily, the tracks were configured north to south. As long as he jumped a train going the right way, it would bring him closer to his transportation.

He paused at the edge of the woods and, while remaining concealed by the mulberry bushes that populated a narrow gully extending from the trees to the tracks, he reached into the pouch containing his night-vision goggles. With the coming dawn, ambient light was greatly increased and, with it, came maximum visibility.

The SUV that had attacked him at the ambush site was nowhere to be seen and a quick glance around the area explained why. This section of track was as inaccessible to wheeled vehicles as the woods had been. A rushing mountain stream cut through the hilly area to the north and rough outcroppings littered the terrain on the other side of the tracks for as far as Bolan could see.

He heard the sound of a slow freight train coming his way, the steady clack of wheels on the rails indicating a speed that could probably be jumped. Placing the goggles back into their pouch, he headed down the gully to a concealed spot close to the tracks.

The train came around a curve and into sight, going faster than Bolan had originally judged. He remained motionless as the double locomotives reached his position and sailed past at about thirty miles per hour—a little too quick for him to attempt a clean jump.

Remaining hidden under the cover of bushes that grew along the tracks to heights of more than six feet, Bolan opened the pouch on his web belt, which held a grappling hook and a length of special cord developed for its strength. Thin and waxy, the lightweight fiber looked like braided strands of dental floss and, although it had a texture so fine a twenty-foot length could be folded to fit into a shirt pocket, it was stronger than the nylon rope used by mountaineers.

Bolan knotted his titanium grappling hook to the cord, and, while judging the feel of the hook’s weight by letting it swing slightly on a few feet of slack, he eyed the passing freight cars for the right opportunity.

More than two dozen boxcars had already passed. A series of double-length flatbeds holding tarp-shrouded cargo came into view. As the cars drew closer, Bolan’s eyes searched for possible catching points on the heavy ropes that were lashed across the gray canvas tarps and fastened to metal cleats running along the outside edge of the flatbeds.

Bolan gave the knot a final tug, stepped out from behind the bush and began to run alongside the train. When the first of the flatbeds with the covered freight passed, he increased his speed while whirling the hook over his head like a rodeo cowboy. As he reached a full sprint, he zeroed in on one of the tarp’s restraining ropes and let it fly. The grappling hook caught at the very top of the tarp on his first attempt, yanking him up and onward as he tightened his hold on the cord. With the muscles in his shoulders and forearms straining, he jumped and pulled with all his strength, his feet clearing the edge of the moving car with inches to spare. Drawing himself forward on the line, he quickly reeled in the slack and freed the hook, putting it back into its pouch on his web belt.

The tracks were level and in good shape, giving the train a smooth, steady ride. Holding on to the slick surface of the canvas tarp, Bolan moved to the front of the flatbed where there was space for him to sit and rest. He reached a clear spot and settled onto the pitted deck with his back resting against the covered cargo as dawn painted the Irish countryside in crisp morning light.

The terrain was changing, morphing from the barren hostility of the moors to pastures that stretched green and fertile under the rising sun. A rust-flaked trestle came into view up ahead, its blistered surface glowing fiery red in the early light. The structure was a remnant from previous years when trains on this run were used for more than simply transporting freight, but its presence made Bolan consider the safety of his position. As he passed under the trestle’s crossbeam, he reasoned that with pastures there would be crossroads, and with the crossroads there would be bridges above the tracks. Unlike the rusting trestle he had just passed under, a bridge could hold an SUV.

Bolan thought his pursuers not only would have known where his escape route from the ambush site would take him, they also would have considered what his options would be once he reached the tracks. As he checked to make sure that both his Desert Eagle and the Beretta were ready for action, he wondered if hopping the train was too obvious.

He calculated he had about fifteen minutes until the tracks began ascending into the mountains along the coast. At that point, he’d get off and walk the rest of the way to his car.

THE SUV’S HIGH PROFILE made it visible from afar. It was sitting on a narrow bridge spanning the tracks, illuminated by the angled rays of the morning sun as if it was on stage. The four men armed with Uzi machine pistols standing in pairs on each side of the vehicle were facing into the sun, putting them at a distinct disadvantage.

Bolan inched to the forward edge of the flatbed and looked around the corner of the cargo loaded onto the car in front of him. Next to the tracks below the SUV, men stood on each side of the passing train, both armed with AK-47s. At the current speed, Bolan estimated he’d be next to them in about three minutes and he’d be exposed for a clean shot from above as well as from both sides.

His eyes darted around the flatbed for a place for him to hide. Even if he got under the tarp, he didn’t know if there would be something he could get behind to afford cover from gunfire, but he certainly couldn’t stay where he was.

Pulling his combat knife from its sheath, he sliced the closest restraining rope. The freed corner of the tarp flapped up, exposing the bottom half of wooden crates stacked so tightly and neatly against one another there wasn’t room for a mouse to crawl between.

As he put the knife away, the Executioner leaned back and looked down, viewing the heavy coupling mechanism linking his car with the one in front. There was a wide space between the clamp and the beginning of his flatbed. With less than a minute and a half remaining before he’d pass under the bridge, Bolan decided the coupler was his only chance for getting past the SUV.

He lowered himself onto the rod between cars, held on tightly to the greasy coupler and slid himself under the flatbed. At first, he thought he’d have to hold his legs up to keep his heels from dragging on the tracks, but once he got under the cargo deck, he discovered there was a beam running across the car about a foot below the flatbed’s underside. Bolan slid his legs into the space and found he could balance himself faceup, mere inches below the flatbed’s deck. And, although he felt pinned in this position, the supporting beam allowed him free use of both hands.

As the train neared the bridge, he wiped his greasy hands on the front of his shirt before drawing his Beretta from its shoulder leather. With his other hand, he pulled the Desert Eagle from his hip holster.

The flapping tarp caught the attention of the men on both sides of the track. Thinking that Bolan was hiding under the canvas, they began spraying the cargo with gunfire, the cracking of 7.62 mm rounds masked by the sound of the train. With their eyes focused on their target, they stitched holes across the tarp in a crisscrossing pattern from corner to corner, never seeing the man suspended in the dark shadows beneath the railroad car.

As he passed between them, Bolan fired with both hands, his weapons spitting death. The rifleman on the right side was hit inches above his belt with three of the Beretta’s 9 mm parabellum rounds. They shoved him backward, his rifle sending a spray of bullets wildly into the air as his finger froze in a death grip on the AK-47’s trigger until the magazine was spent and the bolt clicked onto an open chamber. As he stumbled under weak knees into a sitting position, he dropped his weapon, never knowing the origin of the rounds that were ending his life. With a short low scream that turned quickly into a hard grunt, the gunner fell onto his back while clutching his guts in a futile attempt to stem the flow of blood that surged warm and steaming into his hands.

The man on the left was dispatched by two heavy rounds that roared within a millisecond of each other from the mouth of Bolan’s Desert Eagle. The steel-jacketed rounds caught the guy midchest, tossing him like a rag doll into the brush alongside the tracks where he landed on his back, arms outstretched.

On the bridge above, the men standing next to the SUV searched for the source of gunfire but, before they could locate it, Bolan’s flatbed passed under their position and he became shielded from their weapons by the cargo strapped to the car behind him. Cursing, they scrambled to the other side of the bridge and watched the cars passing underneath. Two of the four opened fire with their Uzis, hosing the flatbeds with a steady stream of 9 mm rounds that sparked and whined as they ricocheted off the metal couplings and tracks.

Once he was beyond their position, Bolan quickly holstered his weapons and pulled himself out from under the railroad car. He peered around the edge of the bullet-riddled canvas in time to see four men dropping from the bridge onto the cargo-laden flatbed three down the line from his. The fixed wooden stocks on their Uzis told Bolan they were carrying older models, but even the earliest versions were formidable killing machines.

The men were obviously planning to work their way forward until they came to Bolan’s position. As he visualized his attackers working as a team, covering one another with a forward wall of lead while advancing up both sides of the cargo on each flatbed, Bolan knew there was a strong possibility they’d successfully reach him.

He scrambled to the other side of his car and peered around the corner. A hail of bullets ripped the canvas directly in front of his face, causing him to pull back out of their line of fire. But in the short seconds before he ducked behind cover, he had seen enough to know his pursuers were employing the exact tactic he suspected. One of them had already begun inching along the outside of their cargo load.

A trestle passed overhead, and Bolan began counting. Switching the fire selector on his Beretta to the 3-round burst mode, he reached around the side of the shredded tarp and pressed the trigger, exposing no more than his hand for a few seconds. The triburst forced the gunners to duck, giving him the seconds he needed to sneak another quick look. The man halfway up the side of the flatbed directly behind Bolan’s had been hit in the upper chest and was holding on for dear life to a rope laced across the cargo. Bolan fired another 3-round burst, and the man’s head exploded in a crimson bloom of brain matter and bone splinters that splashed onto the canvas tarp. As the man’s lifeless body slid to the ground, his legs fell at an angle onto the tracks where they were severed by the train’s heavy steel wheels as cleanly as if by a guillotine.

A return volley made Bolan pull back behind the cargo, but not before he saw the trestle pass over the end of their car. He had counted to thirty-two from the time the trestle passed over his head until he saw it clear the car where his attackers crouched. He lunged to the other side of his car and fired a few bursts down the left side of the train, reloaded, then jumped back to the right side and repeated the action. For the time being, his opponents were remaining behind the cover of their cargo.

Bolan leaped to his full standing position, grabbing a quick look across the top of the tarps. As he had expected, his movement was met with a blizzard of lead that forced him back down, but not before registering the angle at which one of the men was climbing onto the top of the cargo. With the same technique he had used for the assailant trying to rush the side of the flatbed, Bolan fired above the tarps without looking, thereby giving his foes the smallest target possible by only exposing his hand for the few seconds it took to press the Beretta’s trigger. The howls and shrieks of fury immediately reaching his ears told him he had found his mark. Stealing a quick glance over the tarp, he saw his opponent fall from the top of the cargo before the remaining two forced Bolan down with a spray of bullets.

Bolan fingered the remaining magazines in his combat belt while considering his options. By randomly firing quick bursts along the sides and over the top of the cargo loads without giving his enemies more than a second to return fire, Bolan knew he could keep them pinned down, preventing them from rushing his position. It was a classic Mexican standoff, but they had all the time in the world to wait until he ran out of ammo.

Holstering the Beretta, he unhooked an M-68 fragmentation grenade from his web belt and reached into the pouch containing the grappling hook he had used to jump the train. The thin cord was still knotted in place, cinched tight onto the hook by the strain of pulling him on board. While keeping a lookout for the next trestle that the train would pass under, Bolan tied the apple-shaped grenade to the cord’s free end, sliding the knot so the hook hung about three feet from the explosive. He set the fuse for slightly longer than thirty seconds, pulled the pin and held the grenade in his right hand while he drew the Beretta with his left.

Scrambling from side to side, he fired 3-round volleys first from the right side, then from the left, keeping his attackers crouched behind the canvas-covered freight loaded onto their flatbed. When the next trestle was passing over him, Bolan tossed the grappling hook above the rusted crossbeam. The grenade’s safety lever fell free as the hook looped around the trestle, leaving the M-68 dangling on the thin cord like a tiny piñata a few inches above the flatbed’s cargo.

Bolan continued firing on each side of the railroad car to keep his opponents in place while he counted the seconds. When he reached twenty-eight, he looked above the top edge of his tarp and saw that his timing was perfect. The dangling grenade exploded at the exact moment it fell between cars, its thunderous percussion blowing his two enemies from the train.

As the bridge holding the SUV faded into the distance, the Executioner leaned against the boxes of freight and reloaded his Beretta before holstering the weapon. The tracks were beginning to ascend, which meant they were approaching the mountains where he had left his car.

The twin locomotives slowed considerably to cope with the rising grade, giving Bolan ample opportunity to pick an ideal spot to disembark. He hit the ground running, his momentum quickly propelling him away from the train toward a heavily wooded ridge that rose steeply on both sides of the tracks. Having studied topographical maps of the surrounding area before coming in, he knew exactly where he was. Beyond the ridge he now faced, a treacherous coastal road wound up and over the mountains, eventually leading inland to Derry. His car was about a mile up that road.

Bolan leaned into the hillside, rapidly putting distance between himself and the train. As he ran through the woods, he pondered the threat posed by the men in the SUV. He had killed nine of their number, but, judging from their inferiority when engaged in combat, he doubted if they were actual members of the new splinter group threatening the United States. These men were most likely local hoodlums, hired by the Apprentices for the sole purpose of killing whomever came for Oxford’s remains.

Whether or not the survivors would try to find him to avenge their losses was an open question. If they feared they might be killed for failing, or, if payment was contingent on success, they could very well be scouring the roads at this moment, looking for their quarry.

When he came to the edge of the woods where the road began, Bolan dropped to one knee to get his bearings. Rather than proceed on the asphalt where he could be surprised by a vehicle coming around one of numerous blind corners, he decided he would remain about ten yards into the woods. Out of habit, he did a quick touch-check of his weapons before heading off.

It took about fifteen minutes to reach the spot where his Land Rover sat, pulled safely off the road in one of the deep cutouts into the cliff. The vehicle was as Bolan had left it the evening before, a red dashboard light blinking a pattern that told him the car had remained untouched.

As he put the car into gear and pulled out of the cutout onto the road, he glanced at his watch. 6:00 a.m., and the sun was high in the sky.

The tires of the Land Rover gripped the weathered blacktop, propelling him upward on the twisty mountain road. Even with the surface dry and clean, going was dangerous. The asphalt hugged the side of the mountain like a ribbon pulled taut, with turns so tight that no more than a hundred feet of road was visible at any given time. To make matters worse, the grade was getting steeper, affording heart-stopping views over the side of the mountain where hundreds of feet below, surf crashed in a bluish green foam against the rocks.

It was during one of the jackknife turns that hung out over the water, giving Bolan a view of the road winding along the mountainside below him, that he saw the SUV. It was about a quarter of the way down the mountain, coming fast on a straight stretch before it turned out of sight to twist and meander before it would emerge on the road a little higher.

Not knowing if they had spotted him, Bolan increased his pressure on the gas pedal. The vehicle surged forward, spitting loose gravel off to the side. He was about five miles from the spot where the road turned inland. Once he got there, he’d be able to open up and leave his pursuers in the dust.

He rounded a curve, his back tires sliding into a fishtail. Bolan tapped lightly on the brakes to control the skid as a 90 mm rocket whizzed by ten feet in front of him. The projectile slammed into the hillside, sending an explosion of small boulders and dirt into the road. Bolan swerved to avoid the rockfall, his tires screaming as they lay heavy rubber tracks onto the tar while grabbing for traction.

The SUV was on a flat vista higher up the mountain than Bolan thought it would be, making him realize his enemies were in a faster vehicle than his. His original plan to speed away once the trail became level needed serious revision. Finding himself out on a flat track in front of a faster vehicle armed with rockets was not a scenario Bolan could allow to develop.

The road twisted out over the water, and Bolan touched the gas pedal to race around the exposed curve. As he did, he glanced to the cutout vista on the mountainside below. A man knelt next to the SUV, a 90 mm recoilless rifle resting on his shoulder. He fired, and a fireball flashed from the end of the tube. The sound reached Bolan’s ears a second later, only to be immediately swallowed by the eardrum-throbbing explosion occurring three feet behind his vehicle as his quick burst of speed whipped the Land Rover around the corner and out of sight.

With a faster vehicle and heavy armament, Bolan’s enemies held the upper hand. His mind racing, he hugged the edge of the mountain as he sped into a straightaway leading to another curve extending out over the water.

Bolan came through the curve, immediately after which the road turned sharply upward next to a large grotto. It was almost as deep as the one where he’d left the Land Rover the night before, and, as soon as he passed, Bolan stomped on the brakes. The vehicle skidded and shimmied to a spot just past the cutout. Bolan dumped the transmission into Reverse and pealed backward into the grotto, the hood of his vehicle extending a few feet onto the blacktop. If he went straight forward, he’d cross the road and go over the cliff.

Bolan put the car into Park, got out and slammed his shoulder into the side mirror, snapping it off. Using his combat knife, he cut the wires protruding from the mirror assembly and pulled it free.

The sound of the ocean crashing into the rocky shore hundreds of feet below could be heard when he ran into the middle of the road where he positioned the mirror. He sprinted back behind the curve and crouched next to the Land Rover and looked into the mirror’s reflection. It was placed correctly to give him a view around the corner of the road approaching the bend.

Bolan opened the driver’s door and, while kneeling next to the car and leaning in, wedged his combat knife between the accelerator and seat so that the gas pedal was pushed to the floor. As the engine raced, he pressed down on the brake with all his strength and shifted into Drive, holding the car’s horsepower in check with one arm. Keeping his eyes riveted to the reflection in the mirror he had placed in the middle of the road, he held steady while beads of sweat broke out across his brow.

The kill would be quick, one way or the other. The SUV would come tearing around the corner. If Bolan was fast enough, he’d release the Land Rover’s brake, allowing his vehicle to bolt from the cutout and crash into his pursuers as they came abreast, knocking them over the side. It was a desperate plan that required perfect timing.

The Land Rover lurched forward an inch, and Bolan pressed harder on the brake pedal, his muscles cramping under the strain. Drops of stinging sweat trickled into his eyes as he waited patiently for his enemies. Despite the agony that screamed from within his arm and shoulder, he willed himself to push harder, controlling the car that surged under his hands like an energy-charged Thoroughbred at the starting gate.

The SUV suddenly appeared in the mirror, coming fast around the curve. A split second later, it was in front of the grotto, its engine racing against the elevation. Bolan released the brake and fell backward as his vehicle surged forward, smashing into the SUV’s passenger side.

Shrieks of twisting metal and screaming tires filled the air. The Land Rover roared forward, pushing the SUV sideways. The vehicle’s driver reacted to the surprise crash by hitting his brakes, which had the effect of giving the Land Rover better leverage as it thrust forward, back tires spinning and smoking, propelling the vehicle toward the edge of the cliff.

When the entwined cars reached the brink, they balanced precariously above the void, as if deciding whether to go over the side. In the SUV’s backseat, two men, their faces reflecting the terror of their situation, began scrambling over each other in an attempt to find the door handle on the side not smashed by the Land Rover. But, before they could grasp it, the laws of physics intervened and the two vehicles plunged over the side, falling through the air for three or four long seconds before crashing onto the rocks below. There was a brief silence before both cars exploded, generating sound waves that merged and echoed as one across the Irish countryside.

Bolan rose from his position and peered over the edge. He was sweaty and breathing hard, but he had bested the enemy. Sliding his hand into his shirt pocket, he fingered Oxford’s molar and the three medals he had taken from the men at the ambush site.

He had won this particular battle, but the Executioner had no doubt that this war was just beginning.

3

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Less than twenty-four hours after returning from Ireland, Mack Bolan sat with Hal Brognola at a conference table in the War Room, one level below Stony Man Farm. Also with them were Carmen Delahunt and Akira Tokaido—two-thirds of Aaron, the Bear, Kurtzman’s cybernetics team.

While waiting for the rest of the group to arrive, Bolan scanned his copy of the message Agent Steven Oxford had Morse-coded minutes before his death into the microchip implanted in his molar.

“Hot off the press,” Delahunt said, nodding toward the transcript. “Good job, Tokaido, decoding it before they even gave us the key.”

Tokaido shrugged while snapping his ever-present bubble gum. “No challenge,” he said while tonguing the pink wad into the space between his teeth and right cheek. He stared into space, head nodding slightly to the rock music blasting through his earbuds, and added, “CIA,” in a derisive tone that conveyed his disdain for what he considered inferior programming and encryption.

“This was their first mention of going after the CIA?” Bolan asked, without looking up from his reading.

“According to Oxford it was,” Brognola answered. “But let’s wait until the others get here.”

As if on cue, the doors to the elevator built into the corner of the room slid open on a silent cushion of air and an attractive woman, who Bolan judged to be in her early thirties, stepped out. She was about five foot nine with jet black hair that fell straight to her shoulders, framing an ivory-pure angelic face. An off-white silk blouse tucked into pleated black slacks hugged her slender curves in an attractive but not provocative way. The woman’s sparkling blue eyes swept quickly across the War Room, settling for a moment on Bolan before moving on to the others.

Aaron Kurtzman was right behind her, holding the door back with one hand for the woman to exit the elevator ahead of him while he gripped a cup of his lethally strong coffee with the other, ever the gentleman, despite being confined to a wheelchair.

Last off the elevator was Huntington Wethers, the distinguished-looking ex-UCLA professor whose academic approach to research was a perfect complement to Tokaido’s natural hacker skills and Delahunt’s methodical common-sense methods.

“Katey,” Brognola said, rising from his chair as the woman approached.

“That’s quite the confidentiality contract you’ve got, Hal. Twenty-five years in Leavenworth for even a minor violation? And the President endorsed it.” The woman shook her head in disbelief.

“It’s in the best interest of national security. Now, have you met everyone?” Brognola asked.

Her eyes fell again on Bolan, who stood and extended his hand.

“Matt Cooper,” he said, using the cover name he’d recently acquired.

“Katey Adams.”

Her grip was firm, and the way she moved made Bolan suspect she probably had an athletic background.

She had, in fact, been one of the most ferocious field-hockey forwards ever to graduate from MIT, but her most significant athletic achievement during her four years at the institute—and the one that initially caught the interest of the CIA recruiters—was her performance on the school’s pistol team for which she earned All-Ivy honors her senior year.

“Katey is on loan to us from the White House Protocol Section,” Brognola said while everyone got settled. “Until last year, when Edmund Fontes took over, she was head of the CIA’s Irish operation, a post she held for eight years. As such, she’s their foremost expert on Ireland. Katey?”

She began by asking, “Have you all had time to read Agent Oxford’s transcript?”

There were nods around the table.

“Have Randolph’s agents been warned?” Bolan asked.

“Too late for that,” she answered. “Marie Johnston was killed this morning in Pamplona at about two o’clock our time. We just didn’t get the molar soon enough. Taylor and Buckley were both hit yesterday. Randolph has been warned. He’s back at his home base in Stuttgart after taking a few days of leave.”

Wethers emitted a low whistle. “Where were the other two killed?” he asked.

“Taylor in London, Buckley in Paris,” Adams replied.

“Is it possible the killings aren’t connected?” Tokaido asked. “A coincidence of three, even with the communiqué, doesn’t equate to zero probability.”

Bolan thought he could hear a tinny sound coming from the hacker’s earbuds and wondered how the man could follow a conversation above the racket.

“Ballistics confirmed that the same weapon killed all three,” Adams answered. “There was also an orange scarf left with each body.”

“They want us to know it’s them,” Brognola said. “Clearly, the group who sent Fontes the communiqué is the same one killing Randolph’s agents.”

“But are they really backed by the Orange Order?” Delahunt asked. Looking over the frame of her tortoiseshell glasses at Kurtzman, who sat directly across the table from her, she added, “Anyone can plant a few scarves.”

“The Orange Order denies involvement,” Adams said in support of Delahunt’s thought.

“But it would be good for them if the demands in the communiqué were met,” Kurtzman said.

“Of course it would. IRA disarmament and irrefutable establishment of Northern Ireland? It would end the conflict. But there’s no way it’ll happen like this. If terrorists attack the United States, we won’t negotiate with them. We’ll retaliate like we did against the Taliban in Afghanistan.” Adams paused for a moment, as if for emphasis, before saying, “As soon as we can reasonably link someone to these agent killings, we’re sending Fontes a strike force to wipe out their network.”

There was silence around the table for a few moments while the team considered the actual evidence they had. It wasn’t much.

Kurtzman took a sip of coffee, gazing from face to face above the rim of his cup as he did so. “There are two questions, in particular, we must answer. First, why kill Marie Johnston? Taylor and Buckley were field agents, but Johnston was nothing more than an interpreter.”

“Because it’s not about the mission,” Delahunt replied, her words eliciting nods of agreement.

“Secondly,” Kurtzman continued in his patient, thoughtful manner, “is it plausible that a terrorist cell in Northern Ireland would have the means to attack the United States? We’re not talking a global organization like al Qaeda here. What’s the worst thing a breakaway group of the Orange Order could do?”

“Dirty bomb,” Tokaido said.

Delahunt leaned forward, said, “Anthrax mailings,” and then added in a rush, “You bet your ass they have the means. Maybe not for something as dramatic as 9/11, but a subway explosion, a dirty bomb, biological attacks—you don’t need a global infrastructure to pull off any of those.”

“But there are always clues ahead of time if you know where to look,” Tokaido said.

Kurtzman smiled, the pride he felt for his team evident on his face.

“What do you think about these?” Brognola asked no one in particular while reaching into his shirt pocket and tossing onto the table the three chains Bolan had pulled from his would-be ambushers the previous night. “Scapular medals. They lead me to believe that the three men guarding Oxford’s body were Catholics. The Orange Order is a Protestant group.”

“They were thugs,” Bolan answered. “Local hired help. Most likely not part of the core organization. We can’t draw any conclusions from those medals. Not without more intel.”

Wethers suddenly said, “They’re going to hit Randolph tomorrow.”

Before his colleagues could ask him to elaborate, he eplained, “Taylor in London, Buckley in Paris, Johnston in Pamplona. Look at a map and the time between killings. Randolph in Stuttgart is the next element in an obviously clear progression. One killer is making a circular sweep. Plus, we have Oxford’s transcript that says it was all coming down this week.”

“Katey is going back to Ireland,” Brognola said, “and, while she’s there, Cooper will go to Stuttgart to debrief Randolph. If Hunt is right,” he added, looking straight at Bolan, “it will be good for you to be there regardless of anything Randolph can tell you about his previous missions. He’s used Ireland as a gateway for defectors three times. Maybe he stepped on some toes during one of them.”

“You’re not suggesting someone other than Cypher is behind these hits,” Bolan said, more a statement than a question. “I agree with Hunt. Oxford’s message is clear. Cypher is the enemy. The question is, who is he? Oxford was undercover for more than a year, but Cypher doesn’t show up in his reports until three months ago. Where did this guy come from?”

Brognola had been involved with Bolan long enough to know that the man’s question was not rhetorical. The Executioner was on the hunt and there would be no rest until he found his answer. More likely than not, along the way, there would be hell to pay.

TEN HOURS AFTER HER MEETING with the team at Stony Man Farm, Katey Adams looked away from the window of the Hawker Horizon as it shot across the night sky. There was nothing outside for her to see. Ireland’s southwest shoreline was still almost an hour away. When they landed, it would be four in the morning, local time.

Adams sighed and turned toward the man napping in the oversized leather seat across the tiny aisle from her.

The first thing she had noticed about him when she’d stepped off the elevator at Stony Man Farm was how broad his shoulders were. And he was tall, easily six-three or -four. But the trait that had kept her looking back—and, if truth be told, she had fought the urge to stare throughout the entire meeting—was the intelligence that burned in his eyes so intensely that she wondered if they could peer straight into her soul.

He stirred and turned toward her in his sleep. His hair was cut short, but there was a lock in front that had slipped out of place, and Adams wanted very much to reach over and push it back.

His eyes snapped open, making her jump.

“We’re almost there. About an hour,” she said, recovering from having been caught staring. “I’ve always hated this flight.”

He pushed himself upright in the chair and rubbed his face with his hands.

“It’s not a problem for you to leave your job?” he asked as if there had been no break in the hour-long conversation they had shared upon takeoff.

“Actually, it is. The President wants his cabinet to hit the campaign trail, and I’m in charge of planning some of the trips. Daniel Foley’s visiting West Point next month. That’ll be a biggie, and I do have to get back to finish the advance work. I can’t stay in Ireland for more than a few days.”

“There’s no one you can give your work to?”

Adams shrugged. “I guess I could, but ever since 9/11, we’ve kept the specifics of cabinet trips secret until the very last moment. I’m the only one who knows the details of Foley’s and a few other itineraries, and passing them off at this point and trying to bring someone else up to speed might actually be harder than just getting them done myself. Especially in light of these new threats.”

“Tell me about the guy you’re going to visit.”

Adams smiled as she thought of Bryan McGuinness, the fiery editor of the Irish Independent, who had all but adopted her during her first year as CIA section chief in Dublin.

“We go way back, me and Bryan. When I was new in Ireland, he went out of his way to show me the good places to eat, to introduce me to the right people and just to make me feel at home. He did a lot of favors for me in those eight years.”

“Never asked anything in return?”

Adams shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking. I had him checked out when he kept pushing himself on me, and he is a member of the IRA, but we already knew that from his editorials. He never asked me to compromise myself in any way.”

The copilot spread the curtain separating the cockpit from the cabin and, without getting up from his seat, announced, “We’re starting our descent. After landing, we’ll take a two-hour break to refuel and get something to eat before going on to Stuttgart.”

“Okay,” Adams answered as the man turned back to the controls and said something into his headset mike that made the pilot next to him nod and grin.

“Good luck in Ireland,” Bolan said while fastening his seat belt.

Adams responded in kind, and then they were silent, each lost in his or her own thoughts about the upcoming assignments, until the plane touched down at Shannon airport.

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