Conflict Zone. Don Pendleton

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      But he was only human, after all.

      One hell of a human, for sure, but still human.

      Grimaldi trusted Bolan to succeed, no matter the task he was assigned. But if he fell along the way, revenge was guaranteed.

      The pilot swore it on his soul, whatever that was worth.

      He didn’t know jackshit about Nigeria, beyond the obvious. It was a state in Africa, beset by poverty—yet oil rich—disease and chaos verging on the point of civil war, where he would stand out like a sore white thumb. But the official language was English, because of former colonial rule, so he wouldn’t be stranded completely.

      And if Bolan didn’t make it out, Grimaldi would be going on a little hunting trip.

      An African safari, right.

      He owed the big guy that, at least.

      And Jack Grimaldi always paid his debts.

      TOUCHDOWN WAS better than Bolan had any right to expect after stepping out of an airplane and plummeting more than 24,000 feet to Earth. He bent his knees, tucked and rolled as they’d taught him at Green Beret jump school back in the old days, and came up with only a few minor bruises to show for the leap.

      Only bruises so far.

      Step two was covering his tracks and getting out of there before some hypothetical pursuer caught his scent and turned his drop into a suicide mission.

      Bolan took it step by step, with all due haste. He shed the parachute harness first thing, along with his combat webbing and weapons. Next, he stripped off the jumpsuit that had saved him from frostbite while soaring, but which now felt like a baked potato’s foil wrapper underneath the Nigerian sun. That done, he donned the combat rigging once again and went to work.

      Fourth step, reel in the parachute and all its lines, compacting same into the smallest bundle he could reasonably manage. That done, he unsheathed his folding shovel and began to dig.

      It didn’t have to be a deep grave, necessarily. Just deep enough to hide his jumpsuit, helmet, bottled oxygen and mask, the chute and rigging. If some kind of nylon-eating scavenger he’d never heard of came along and dug it up that night, so be it. Bolan would be long gone by that time, his mission either a success or a resounding, fatal failure.

      More than depth, he would require concealment for the burial, in case someone came sniffing after him within the next few hours. To that end, he dug his dump pit in the shadow of a looming mahogany some thirty paces from the clearing where he’d landed, and spent precious time re-planting ferns he had disturbed during the excavation when he’d finished.

      It wasn’t perfect—nothing man-made ever was—but it would do.

      He had a four-mile hike ahead of him, through forest that had so far managed to escape the logger’s ax and chainsaw. As he understood it from background research, Nigeria, once in the heart of West Africa’s rain forest belt, had lost ninety-five percent of its native tree cover and now imported seventy-five percent of the lumber used in domestic construction. Some conservationists believed that there would be no forests left in the country by 2020, a decade and change down the road toward Doomsday.

      That kind of slash-and-burn planning was seen throughout Africa, in agriculture, mineral prospecting, environmental protection, disease control—you name it. The native peoples once ruled and exploited by cruel foreign masters now seemed hell-bent on turning their ancestral homeland into a vision of post-apocalyptic hell, sacrificing Mother Nature on the twin altars of profit and national pride.

      Of course, the foreigners were still involved, and if they didn’t always have traditional white faces, they were every bit as rapacious as Belgium’s old King Leopold or Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm. Africa still had treasures to steal or buy cheaply, and Nigeria’s main claim to fame was petroleum.

      Which brought Bolan’s mind back front and center to his mission as he slogged through a forest whose upper canopy steamed, while its floor lay in warm, muggy shade.

      The oil rush was on in Nigeria, had been for years now, and like any mineral boom, it spawned winners and losers. The haves and have-nots. In Nigeria’s case, the have-nots—or rather, some of them—had taken up arms to demand a piece of the action. Barring concessions that pleased them, they aimed to make life untenable for the haves.

      Which led to Bolan traveling halfway around the world, sleeping on planes and later jumping out of one to drop from more than four miles high and land on hostile ground where he’d be hunted by both sides, if either one detected him.

      All for a young woman he’d never met or heard of previously, whom he’d never really get to know, and whom he’d never see again if he pulled off the job at hand and saved her life.

      The really weird part, from a “normal” individual’s perspective, was that none of it seemed strange to Bolan. Hell, it wasn’t even new. The maps and faces changed, of course, but it was what Mack Bolan did.

      Well, some of what he did.

      The rest of it was killing, plain but often far from simple. He’d received the Executioner nickname the hard way, earning it. A few had nearly rivaled Bolan’s record as a sniper when he wore his country’s uniform.

      As for the rest, forget it.

      If there was another fighting man or woman who could match his body count since Bolan had retired from military service to pursue a one-man war, it ranked among the best-kept secrets of all time.

      He had a job to do, now, in Nigeria. Helping a total stranger out of trouble.

      And there would be blood.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Stony Man Farm, Virginia

      Thirty-three hours prior to touchdown in Nigeria, Bolan had cruised along Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, watching the marvels of nature scroll past his windows. As always, he knew that the drive was only the start of another long journey.

      His destination that morning wasn’t the end.

      It was a launching pad.

      He blanked that out and took the Blue Ridge drive for what it was: a small slice of serenity within a life comprising primarily tension, violent action and occasional side trips into Bizarro Land.

      Bolan enjoyed the drive, the trees and ferns flanking the two-lane blacktop, and the chance of seeing deer or other wildlife while en route. He’d never been a hunter in the “sporting” sense, and while he’d never thought of carrying a placard for the other side, it pleased him to see animals alive and well, wearing the skins or feathers they were born with.

      When you’d dropped the hammer on enough men, he supposed, the “game” of killing lost its dubious appeal.

      But stalking human predators, well, that was Bolan’s job. And it would never end, as long as he survived.

      So be it. He had made a choice, in full knowledge that there could be no turning back, no change of mind or heart once the decision was translated into action. Bolan was the Executioner, and always would be.

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