War Drums

Mack Bolan had long accepted he was living on borrowed time

Over countless missions he had gambled against the odds, and as time went by he realized those odds were becoming slimmer with every mission he accepted.

Stepping as he did into the killing grounds, facing enemies intent on turning Bolan’s world into a savage hell on earth, he saw himself not as some indestructible automaton, but a normal guy doing extraordinary things by simply refusing to give in to savage man. The rules devised for civilized existence were being trampled into the dust by the hyenas walking around on two legs.

Mack Bolan did what he could to bring some kind of sanity to the evils perpetrated by the spoilers.

Other titles available this series:

Shock Tactic

Showdown

Precision Kill

Jungle Law

Dead Center

Tooth and Claw

Thermal Strike

Day of the Vulture

Flames of Wrath

High Aggression

Code of Bushido

Terror Spin

Judgment in Stone

Rage for Justice

Rebels and Hostiles

Ultimate Game

Blood Feud

Renegade Force

Retribution

Initiation

Cloud of Death

Termination Point

Hellfire Strike

Code of Conflict

Vengeance

Executive Action

Killsport

Conflagration

Storm Front

War Season

Evil Alliance

Scorched Earth

Deception

Destiny’s Hour

Power of the Lance

A Dying Evil

Deep Treachery

War Load

Sworn Enemies

Dark Truth

Breakaway

Blood and Sand

Caged

Sleepers

Strike and Retrieve

Age of War

Line of Control

Breached

Retaliation

Pressure Point

Silent Running

Stolen Arrows

Zero Option

Predator Paradise

Circle of Deception

Devil’s Bargain

False Front

Lethal Tribute

Season of Slaughter

Point of Betrayal

Ballistic Force

Renegade

Survival Reflex

Path to War

Blood Dynasty

Ultimate Stakes

State of Evil

Force Lines

Contagion Option

Hellfire Code

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

—Joseph Conrad,

1857–1924

Jackals in human form are quick to cash in on the misery of their fellow man. I do what I can whenever I can to even the odds.

—Mack Bolan

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

London, England

He never saw his killer. At the last moment he heard a faint click as someone eased off a safety. Before that, nothing. Whoever had come to end his life was good. That he had got this close meant he was better than good. And the sudden realization that he was about to die brought a rush of emotions and an overwhelming sadness that unrealized dreams would now never be. In the final moment he did make an attempt to pull out his own weapon, but the very act of reaching for it became his last. The bullet that blew apart his skull impacted a scant second before the second one followed. He felt only a solid blow that completely took away all of his senses in the ferocity of its effect on his brain and the functions it had controlled. There was no sound. No time to think about what had happened. Just that stunning blow that wiped his life away in an instant. The second bullet cored its way through and blew out his left eye. His body lurched forward, then dropped to the ground in the fluid slackness that comes only with death. There was no grace in his demise, simply the collapsing of a lifeless corpse that had only seconds before been a living, breathing man.

The body lay for almost twenty minutes before it was spotted by an employee of one of the restaurants the alley ran behind. Stepping outside for a cigarette the kitchen assistant almost tripped over the corpse. He recoiled at the sight of the body and the pooling, drying blood that had edged out from beneath the head. He stood for a few seconds, simply staring, uncertain what to do now that he found himself confronted by the corpse of someone who had been the victim of a violent death. He turned and went back inside to let others know what he had found, then made his way to a telephone to inform the police.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER THE crime scene team showed up. The metropolitan police cruiser that arrived earlier had cordoned off the area, holding back onlookers so the crime scene was untouched. With practiced efficiency the CS team marked possible relevant evidence, took photographs and checked the vicinity. When they were satisfied, they had the body removed, the contents of the victim’s pockets tagged and bagged and sent to the CS lab. In due course fingerprints were taken and fed into NAFIS, the UK cousin to the American AFIS system. It was, due to the current security conditions, connected to the U.S. database and it was able to identify the dead man. According to the criminal database the deceased was one Harry Vincent. NAFIS threw up a rap sheet that showed Vincent to have been arrested twice in the U.S. for suspected arms trafficking, but insufficient evidence had meant he was never charged. He had done time in prison for minor criminal acts. His background read like a familiar story of early criminal activity that continued into adult life. Certain questions arose that the UK police needed answers to. The main one concerned the seeming ability of a known criminal to be able to move back and forth through customs, without his past raising a flag.

Before the police could continue their investigation, matters were taken from their hands in the form of agents from the London field office of the CIA stepping in with a claim for Harry Vincent. Protests were stepped on harshly by orders from the higher-ups in Scotland Yard, who had received their instructions from MI-5, acting on calls originating in Langley, Virginia. Everything referring to Harry Vincent was confiscated by the CIA. There was a brief flurry of protest that ran all the way up to the top and back. At each level, those in control were given the stern warning to stand down. This was not a request, it was a top-priority command. Those who had identified Harry Vincent were told to forget about him. They found their computer access blocked, all references to Harry Vincent deleted. The phrases “need to know” and “in the national interest” were trotted out. That didn’t settle too well with the police department, but in the era of cooperation and national-international security, any tardiness was frowned on when it came to interfering with due process. The CIA team did its work with cool efficiency, whisking away Harry Vincent, his belongings and all the data gathered by the police. By the end of the day it was as if Vincent had never existed.

In truth, he never had.

Only those at the uppermost level knew that Harry Vincent was simply the cover identity created by the CIA’s Deep Cover section for one of their agents. His fingerprints, fed into NAFIS, then AFIS, had set off alarm bells at Langley. Langley had informed the London field office, issuing a removal authorization that entitled the team to acquire Vincent and all relevant data. The body was driven directly to a small airstrip used by the CIA and put on a plane that would finally deliver Harry Vincent to Langley, Virginia.

CHAPTER ONE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Two days later Hal Brognola, director of the Sensitive Operations Group, based at Stony Man Farm, received an urgent summons that took him directly to the White House where he was ushered in to see the President of the United States. The big Fed was sequestered with the Man for almost two hours. When he left, with a briefcase holding a “need to know” file, he returned to Stony Man. During the helicopter flight, he sent an e-mail directive requesting an immediate mission briefing. On touchdown he went directly to the office he used while at the farm and made four copies of the file, then headed to the War Room.

Those in attendance were Barbara Price, mission controller, and Aaron Kurtzman, the facility’s cybernetics chief. The third person he had requested was missing.

“Where is he?” Brognola growled as he sat, opened his briefcase and slapped the presidential files on the conference table.

“He’s on his way,” Price said. Concentrating on her own paperwork, she maintained a calm manner, hoping that her emotions didn’t betray her.

Brognola sorted the files, muttering to himself, and failed to hear the door open and close behind him.

“Time on this is scarce,” Brognola said sharply.

“I’m all ears, Hal.”

Brognola glanced up to see Mack Bolan facing him across the table, a slight smile on his face. The big Fed loosened his crumpled tie and opened the top button on his shirt. He noticed that Bolan looked cool and relaxed in clean, casual clothing, his hair still holding the damp shine from a recent shower.

“By the look of you, I’m being too easy. Not interrupting your free time am I?”

Bolan sat. “Not right now. R and R is over.”

If he hadn’t been so immersed in his paperwork Brognola might have noticed the sudden rush of color that invaded Price’s cheeks. It was only Kurtzman who picked up on it and chose to ignore it, sliding out a computer keyboard from the table, busying himself logging on. For the briefest moment Price’s eyes caught Bolan’s and they exchanged a fleeting smile. Then the soldier turned his steady gaze on Brognola.

“So what have you got, Hal?”

Brognola slid a copy of the file to each person in the room and sat back while they read and digested the data inside. He allowed them the time they needed before clearing his throat to open the discussion.

“Comments?”

“Why us?” Price asked. “I mean, the President has lifted the case from the CIA and pushed it our way.”

“Plain and simple. The President wants Stony Man to handle this. He had a visit from the CIA special ops director, and from what he told me the U.S. is in a fix over this Iranian deal. Intel has Iran’s hard-liners pushing for their own nuclear capability in defiance of UN rulings. They’re doing their damnedest to refine weapon’s grade plutonium and intelligence sources say they have some underground development work on the technical side.”

“Hardly a threat in the short term,” Price said.

“No one is expecting them to suddenly have fleets of ICBMs targeting New York,” Brognola replied. “But the very thought of Iran having any kind of nuke is sending shivers all across the Middle East, especially in the direction of Israel.”

“Those hard-liners have been laying it down pretty fierce,” Aaron Kurtzman pointed out. “They blame Israel for every problem in the region. I understand the rhetoric involved in politics. It’s all to do with psyching out the enemy, but in an area like the Middle East it’s very easy to start the fires.”

“If Israel gets pushed too far it might use one of its own surgical strikes against Iran,” Bolan said. “Preemptive. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Exactly. If that happens, we could end up with one hell of a conflict. But there’s more to it. The President has intel that points to Chinese involvement, behind-the-scenes courting of Ayatollah Muhar Razihra. He’s the man behind the belligerent criticism of Israel and the West. The Chinese are promoting themselves as the emerging political and market successor to the U.S. They have their eye on the future and Iran’s oil reserves. Iran as a superpower, wielding the strength of nuclear capability in the region means they’ll have clout. Beijing hasn’t been slow at seeing the benefits of wooing the Iranians. The country is oil rich. And oil is as important to China as it is to us. The Chinese are willing to work at this over the long term.”

“What about the rest of the region?” Bolan asked.

“Unrest. Negative feelings where it comes to Iran becoming nuclear. That’s another of the President’s concerns. We all understand the uncertainty in the region in general. All it needs is one country suddenly having a big stick they can use to intimidate other countries.”

“What about Iran’s moderates?” Price asked. “Isn’t there a calming influence?”

Kurtzman nodded. “Sure. There are government members who want to stay out of the nuclear club. They see the problems on the horizon. Right now they seem to be shouted down at every turn and the problem is they don’t have enough backing from the military or the religious community, which Razihra does.”

“Aaron, put up those images I sent you,” Brognola said.

Kurtzman tapped his keyboard and one of the wall screens lit up.

“The guy on the right in the black robes is Ayatollah Razihra. He’s the big gun in the pro-nuke debate. His direct opponent is Nuri Masood, a government minister who argues against the program. That’s him in the middle. On the left is Dr. Shahan Baresh. He works under Masood, and he’s a skilled negotiator who does all the Iranian dealings with the UN and other groups trying to ease the tension. He spends a great deal of his time out of the country in meetings, seminars, doing his best to promote a better image for Iran.”

“I’ve heard about Razihra,” Price said. “He’s not the kind of man you’d want standing against you.”

“I imagine this is only part of the picture, Hal,” Bolan said.

“Oh, yes.” Brognola tapped the file in front of him. “The CIA had a man infiltrated into a group that has been supplying the Iran Secret Service with conventional weapons and technical data on the construction and deployment of nuclear weaponry. This sweet bunch has even been negotiating with them to purchase this information and hardware. If the Iranians get their hands on this data, it gives them a jump-start on their development program. If they aren’t already up and running.

“The CIA director had initiated the covert operation himself, choosing his own agent and keeping it close to his chest after getting the go from the Man. It appeared to be running pretty smoothly until a few days ago when the undercover agent was assassinated in London. Professional hit. Two shots to the back of the head. The agent was working under the name Harry Vincent. When Scotland Yard put the name through their system it went all the way to Langley and was red-flagged in the director’s office. The numbers clicked in and Vincent’s body was appropriated by the CIA’s London field office and flown back to CIA headquarters. The director did his best to keep the details under wraps, but the killing made him suspicious and he went straight to the President. He suspected he had a leak within the Agency. The President took over the covert operation and told the director he’d take care of it.”

“He didn’t mention us?” Price asked.

“How could he?” Kurtzman asked. “We don’t exist.”

“Exactly,” Brognola agreed. “The President hinted the military would look into the matter and told the director it would be dealt with. I guess the director would have been relieved to have it taken off his hands. He’s going to have enough explaining to do over the Agency leak.”

“So we pick up the slack again,” Price commented.

“It’s what we do best,” Brognola said. “The director handed over all the intel his agent had gathered. His real name, by the way, was Carl Marchesse. Thirty-four years old. Native New Yorker. Joined the Agency when he was twenty-two and worked his way up through the ranks. Seems he showed a flair for undercover work early on. Worked a number of assignments that gained him a lot of brownie points. Five years ago he was recruited into a special ops section, specializing in the really down and dirty covert operations. He did well. When the Iranian operation was set up around five months ago, Marchesse was the man the director chose. He disappeared for a couple of months and when he resurfaced he was Harry Vincent. According to the director, he infiltrated the group suspected of providing the Iranians with weapons and data on nuclear weapons. The group’s headed by a Russian named Anatoly Nevski.”

“If a double agent in the CIA ordered his murder,” Bolan said, “all that intel is most likely in his hands, as well.”

“Unfortunately that’s probably true. Aaron, second file, please.”

“The gaunt-looking guy is Dr. Gregori Malinski, a Russian nuclear physicist. After the Soviet Union collapsed he was more or less out of a job. He moved around and started to sell his knowledge on the open market to whoever would pay. Marchesse’s intel told us the Iranians had him working big-time on their nuke development. But he dropped out of sight some days ago. Nevski had brokered Malinski’s contract with Razihra and his military backers. From what Marchesse managed to pick up the Iranians are less than pleased about Gregori’s jumping ship. It could be he left them at a critical stage in the development. If the Iranians had people clever enough to develop their own nuclear weapons they wouldn’t have needed to buy Malinski.”

“This is an old photo,” Kurtzman said. “The girl is Malinski’s estranged daughter, Sashia. She’s management in an international travel agency. Hops around all over the place. Right now she’s based in Paris. It might be that Malinski got in touch. It’s a long shot, but it could happen. It would be helpful for us if he did. But not so much for Razihra.”

“And this is because…?” Bolan asked.

“Malinski knows the location of the Iranian base where the nuclear development is taking place,” Brognola said. “Also, he’s just one of the equations in the picture.”

“I get the feeling you’re about to tell me what I’m about to let myself in for.”

“That’s my guy.”

Kurtzman brought up more pictures. “This next batch show the members of the Russian syndicate Marchesse infiltrated. I mentioned Anatoly Nevski. He’s the lean guy with the blond crew cut. He might look like a California basketball player but don’t be fooled by his good looks. He’s the top man. Not exactly Russian mafiya, but no Mother Theresa, either. It isn’t difficult to categorize him,” Kurtzman said. He pushed at a thick file across the table for Bolan to scan. “Courtesy of your buddy Commander Valentine Seminov, Moscow OCD. His attached note says he would be most appreciative if you could ‘take the piece of scum down.’ Do that and he will forever be in your debt. Nevski is no more than a connected street thug. Background is pure Moscow underworld. Worked his way through the ranks. From street hustler, pimp, pusher to present-day global arms dealer.

“When the Soviet regime collapsed, Nevski was in the front of local crime. Anything is fair game for the man. Stolen cars. Drugs. He was, and still is, one of Russia’s promoters of the white-slave trade, snatching young women off the streets to put them into prostitution and porn. He trades them across Europe, the Middle East and here in the States.”

“Sounds like a sweet guy,” Price said.

“Nevski has a unique business procedure,” Kurtzman went on. “If he takes a liking to your business, he makes a single, time-limited offer. If you say no he sends in his people and you get a bullet to the back of the head. Deal settled. No sentiment. No reasoning.”

Bolan was leafing through the file. “How did he segue into the arms business?”

“He saw the opportunities when the Soviet military machine started to fall apart. He nurtured contacts, wiped out a couple of smaller dealers and took their place. No hassle. He surrounded himself with plenty of muscle and firepower, and within twelve months he was one of the major players. He added industrial espionage and technical expertise to his catalog.”

“Which brings us back to the good Dr. Malinski,” Brognola said.

“Nevski looks for what the client wants, makes them a good offer because money is never a problem in this market,” Kurtzman said. “He sets up the whole package and delivers.”

“A nuclear physicist to jump-start your missile program,” Bolan added.

“Exactly.”

“But Malinski going AWOL has spoiled his customer satisfaction record.”

Kurtzman nodded. “Damn right. It isn’t going to make him popular with Ayatollah Razihra. Nevski will do anything to stay on Razihra’s good side. The word is Nevski is in very deep with the Ayatollah. This is more than just a one-off contract. Nevski is with Razihra for the long term. He’s realized the profit margin that staying with the guy will bring. So he’s in there pitching. Anything Razihra wants Razihra gets.”

“So he quickly gets rid of the CIA mole as soon as he’s been exposed,” Brognola said. “We were right it being a professional hit.”

Kurtzman tapped in another image. “The scowly guy is Nevski’s second in command. Lem Kirov, all round bad guy. Unstable and very violent. Next up is Claude Stratton. British. He’s a fixer, paymaster, dealer, for any number of dissident groups floating around Europe and the UK. He does a lot of transactions for ex–Saddam Hussein loyalists, like these three charmers—Ahmer Musak, Omar Jafir, Ibrahim Hassan. They appear to have access to some of the money Hussein stashed away. They’re using it to help Razihra and keep things hot in the region. They were all colonels in the Iraqi military. Now they’re being feted by militant Jordanians. They’re holed up in the desert at some training camp, along with some of Razihra’s hard-liners, led by Yamir Kerim. Marchesse knew that a consignment of weapons was shipped out to this camp. He never got the chance to find out what it was for.”

“Educated guess?” Bolan asked and answered the question himself. “Israel?”

“Borders Jordan. And we know Razihra is anti-Israel. It’s one of his main political rants,” Kurtzman said. “And why would weapons be delivered to Jordan if they were intended for Iran? Too far to risk transporting all that way. Could be part of Razihra’s aim. He doesn’t hide the fact he wants Israel destabilized. To be frank, his ideal would be Israel up in smoke.”

“If Razihra’s group has its way, it will boost its standing within the radicals across Iran,” Brognola said “It would strengthen their cause. A victory over the current administration isn’t what Iran needs. It could make for an isolationist condition that would back them up against the wall. It could happen if Razihra plays to fundamentalist emotions. The man in the street already sees the West and Israel as the brokers of everything going wrong in the region. If Razihra gets his hands on the reins we can kiss goodbye to any negotiations. And that feeling could spread beyond Iran’s borders.”