Threat Factor

Threat Factor
Don Pendleton

A Somali pirate attack raises a red flag when the stolen cargo is Russian tanks and ammunition–enough to start a civil war. Called in to seek and destroy the weapons, Mack Bolan knows the only way to head off future bloodshed is to cause some deadly mayhem of his own.Dodging the local warlords in their own backyard isn't going to be easy–especially when their army of foot soldiers is seemingly endless. But Bolan is ready to end this lethal game. With the bidding about to begin, the Executioner is prepared to go all the way–and his price is death.

Then the gates of hell opened up

The game was on, and the only way to win it was to charge on, straight ahead.

Bolan went through the curtain in a fighting crouch and dropped another adversary as his target tried to cock his AK-47. Shock was written on the gunman’s face as he went down.

The others started firing then, mostly without direction, making lethal noise as soldiers often did to keep the enemy at bay until they worked out what in hell was happening. The walls were being chipped and scarred by bullets, drilled through completely in places by the larger calibers.

Bolan had claimed the table of the second man he’d shot, flipped it to make a shield of sorts, but knew it wouldn’t serve him long or well. The first hits showered him with splintered wood, which meant that at least a couple of his enemies had seen him go to ground.

It was time to move.

But first, a little shock and awe.

Threat Factor

The Executioner

Don Pendleton’s

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

The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.

—Journals

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803–1882

Sometimes we have to fight evil with evil, fire with fire. Violence is the only language some predators understand, and I speak it fluently.

—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

Epilogue

Prologue

Indian Ocean

Captain Danilo Andreychuk was worried. He had watched a trawler keeping pace with the Vasylna for the better part of two hours. Examining the rusty hulk through his binoculars from half a mile away, he could not escape a sense that he was being stalked.

It was entirely reasonable that Captain Andreychuk feared treachery. These waters, off the east coast of Somalia, teemed with hijackers and pirates who liked nothing better than to prey on merchant ships—stealing their cargo, sometimes offering it back for ransom to the rightful owners and frequently committing acts of needless violence against the transport crews.

And the Vasylna was a prime target.