id="ucdddb0a2-2030-5a5e-ba6f-f2bead912b44">
WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE
It’s no coincidence that Cuban missiles disappear at the same time two scientists are kidnapped from a conference in Mexico. And all the clues lead to North Korea. The country already has atomic bombs, and now they’ve got everything they need to perfect long-range missile technology. Unless Mack Bolan can stop them.
Determined to save the scientists and prevent a world war, Bolan learns he’s not the only one with his sights set on retrieving the missiles. The Iranians are also after the technology, along with a North Korean army colonel and his ruthless assistant. With a killer on his tail, the Executioner has to eliminate the international threat...or die trying.
Grimaldi buzzed the airstrip, diving at the accelerating plane.
The aircraft jerked to the left, slowing. The side door flew open and a figure jumped to the ground. Thin streams of red tracer rounds zoomed upward.
“Whoever the hell that guy is,” Grimaldi said over the radio, “I’m taking fire, and it’s coming close!”
Bolan paused, sighted the hostile gunner and squeezed off a quick burst. The man twisted in Bolan’s direction, and the Executioner fired again. His target jerked slightly. He was hit—but how badly?
Seconds later he had his answer as the red tracer rounds began zipping past him. He ducked, rolled to the left and came up on one knee just as the firing stopped. He saw the hostile leaning back, his right arm extended behind him.
Bolan fired another burst, and seconds later the flash and concussion of an explosion washed over him, accompanied by a second, larger conflagration as the plane went up in a gigantic fireball.
Missile Intercept
Don Pendletons
It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.
—William Tecumseh Sherman
There is nothing pretty about a nuclear conflagration. Yet the insanity continues. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should serve to stay the hand of all leaders. But they don’t. We must stand strong and protect the innocents.
—Mack Bolan
Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.
But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.
Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.
He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.
So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.
But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.
Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.
Contents
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
Epilogue
Palatial Garden near Kim Il Sung Square
Pyongyang, North Korea
Colonel Yi Sun-Shin of the Korean People’s Army of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea watched as Gumon Yoong, the Black Dragon, stalked his last two opponents. Ten bodies littered the ground between them. The Dragon, clad in his dark special forces military fatigues, had dispatched the others with a series of deft blows, punches, whirling kicks and chopping strikes with the edge of his hand.
At least these executions were more entertaining than the last batch, Yi thought. Those had been carried out with an antiaircraft gun, leaving the hapless general and his assistant little more than misshapen piles of bones and flesh on the firing range. It was like using a sledgehammer to smash a mouse.
One of the Dragon’s remaining opponents assumed a fighting stance, his fists outstretched.
The Dragon smirked, continuing his steady advance.
His opponent lurched forward and threw a high roundhouse kick, which the Dragon brushed away with a casual flick of his hand.
The man twisted, executing a spinning back kick.
Instead of blocking the blow, the Dragon stepped inside the arc of the kick, letting his opponent’s leg curl around him. The Dragon’s hands were a blur as they struck the man’s exposed neck, the tandem blows leaving his head flopping like a broken doll’s. He slipped to the ground, a trail of blood leaking from a corner of his mouth, his eyes open and sightless.
The Dragon’s last opponent glanced around nervously, but the stone walls of the garden were high. There was no place to flee, yet he tried, turning and running away at full speed. The Dragon pursued him, closing the gap easily and then leaping into the air, his left leg tucked, the right cocked and ready. The Dragon’s right foot shot out, clipping the back of the running man’s neck. He fell face-first onto the hard ground as