Altered State

Altered State
Don Pendleton

Kabul, Afghanistan, remains a front line within a bureaucratic civil war, where spooks, soldiers, fanatics and narcotics collide in profit and death. Added to the mix are rumors of a heroin operation now run by America's largest and most respected private security firm.With no legal remedy on hand, Mack Bolan is dispatched on a scorched-earth mission that threatens to expose more than just hand-holding deep inside the Beltway. With his identity compromised from the start, the Executioner hooks up with a seasoned DEA agent and local informant, blowing out the infrastructure of a massive narco-traffic operation brick by brick, and exposing the long arm of a traitor.

“A report?” Brognola said. “I’d like to see it.”

“I misspoke. Call it a rumor, if you like.”

“I don’t like rumors,” the big Fed stated. “Who are these valued contractors?”

The black eyes pinned him. “Let’s cut the crap. State officially objects to any unauthorized Justice programs you may be running in Afghanistan. That comes from the top. I hope it’s clear enough for you.”

“It’s crystal clear,” Brognola said, rising to his feet. “I can assure you without fear of contradiction that Justice has no unauthorized programs running in Kabul, or anywhere else. And that comes from the top. Have a good one.”

Brognola felt them staring daggers at him as he left. He had a problem now, a leak, and he would have to deal with it before he and Bolan landed in a world of hurt.

Altered State

Don Pendleton

Mack Bolan

www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)

We have to condemn publicly the very idea that some people have the right to repress others. In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers…we are ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

—Alexander Solzhenitsyn

It’s time to reproach and punish evil, once and for all. Beginning here and now.

—Mack Bolan

For Corporal Jason L. Dunham, USMC

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

Badghis Province, Northwestern Afghanistan

Black helicopters do exist.

After all the fervid speculation among UFO-watchers and conspiracy theorists, despite all the official denials and earnest assurances, unmarked whirlybirds of ill omen are seen on occasion.

And they always bear bad news.

The two aloft this morning, shortly after dawn, had lifted off from Murghab, heading northwest toward the border of Turkmenistan. They did not mean to cross the border, although such a violation of the law would not be out of character for anyone on board.

Their destination was a mountain village called Uzra, inhabited by peasants who had caused more trouble than their tiny lives were worth. This day, the men who called the shots were settling old accounts.

The black choppers were both Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawks, each with a two-man crew and complement of twelve troops aboard, capable of cruising at 173 miles per hour with a top-end do-not-exceed speed of 222 mph. Their combat radius was 368 miles, but this morning’s jaunt covered only a fraction of that distance.

Each Black Hawk was armed—one with a door-mounted 7.62 mm M-60D machine gun, the other with an M-134 Minigun that spewed armor-piercing bullets from an electrically driven rotary breech at a rate of 4,000 rounds per minute.