Rogue Elements

TREACHEROUS CARGO

A freighter smuggling nuclear materials from North Korea to Iran should be an easy target for law enforcement. But then the ship drops off the map around the Horn of Africa, and another freighter with similar cargo disappears soon after. The only link between the vessels is a private security firm. With nukes floating around in the Indian Ocean, the race is on to prevent a horrific disaster…and Stony Man Farm has the perfect man for the job.

Mack Bolan’s first move is to infiltrate the security company as an undercover guard. But when he forms an unlikely alliance with a Somali pirate, it becomes clear these ships aren’t just falling prey to high-seas holdups—and it’s up to Bolan to unravel the conspiracy. With enemies onboard his vessel and trawling nearby waters, Bolan must be sharper and more uncompromising than ever. But not even an ocean can douse The Executioner’s fiery crusade for justice.

AK-47s stuttered into life from the approaching pirate boats.

The Caprice’s harbor searchlights stabbed into the gloom as the ship’s collision alarm began to whoop. The deck hummed beneath Bolan’s boots as the freighter’s diesels went to full power.

The captain shouted across Bolan’s com-link. “Fast boats coming alongside to starboard! Right in front of you! It’s the bloody Spanish Armada…”

Ladder hooks clanked onto the rail, the ladder shifting and shaking as it took the weight of boarders. Bolan lit his firebomb and rose. He swung the sling overhead like a tennis serve and released it over the side.

Men in the skiff below screamed as the flaming bottle shattered and fire engulfed the prow. The Executioner dropped just as bullets screamed past his head.

A high-powered rifle cracked out on the water.

“Sniper!” Bolan roared. “Hit the deck!”

Then a grenade launcher blooped and the stern lit up in an orange, high-explosive flash.

Rogue Elements

Don Pendleton

People who make no noise are dangerous.

—Jean de La Fontaine

A soldier has to remain calm and steadfast. Hatred and anger clouds judgment, and that can get you killed. When you face an enemy, you have to keep your head—or you’ll lose it.

—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

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

Dedication

Legend

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

Copyright

Chapter One

Salalah, Oman

“We Viking guys get all the shit assignments.” Rafe Sifuentes scowled as he looked around the Café Américain. “And this place? Total latrine.”

Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, nodded. The bar was in fact something of a dump. The name was a dim nod to the film Casablanca, and that was about all it had in common with Humphrey Bogart’s place. Café Américain was one of the few government-licensed bars in Oman not attached to an international hotel, and it catered to sailors and foreign dockworkers in the Port of Salalah, as well as locals who could afford the bribe and wished to drink illegally outside their homes. It sported several big-screen TVs tuned to FOX News and international football. Sifuentes, a former US Army Ranger, was Texan, in his early twenties and sported military and Mexican religious tattoos over much of his physique.

“I’ve been in worse places,” Bolan admitted.

“Is that even possible?”

The Executioner took a long pull of his lager. “At least the beer is cold.”

“Yeah, well, settle in then, pilgrim, ’cause this is where we R & R until further notice. I was talking to a Rampart asshole at the airport. You know where his team spent time off between ships? The Seychelles. You know where that is?”

Bolan nodded.

Sifuentes went on anyway. “I had to wiki that shit. Tropical island paradise. Before that? The guy was in Goa—girls, ganja and surfing. Me and you, amigo? We’re in Salalah. What the hell kind of name is that? Sounds like a kid made it up. What the hell are we supposed to do here?”

“Tell you what, Sifuentes. If you stand up on the bar and sing Feliz Salalah, your drinks are free the rest of the night.”

Sifuentes laughed despite himself.

Bolan shrugged. “The locals will love you.”

“Dude, you maintain what my XO in Afghanistan called an eternally sunny disposition.”

“Like I said, the beer is cold.” Bolan tipped his bottle at Sifuentes. “And we’re getting paid. I’ve been in situations where none of that was happening.”

Sifuentes stared at Bolan as they toasted. “I bet you have. One of these days we need to talk.”

“One of these days,” Bolan agreed, raising his bottle and his voice. “But in the meantime, here’s to the sultan! Long may he reign! Insha’Allah!”

Several Omani men at the closest table smiled around the wads of khat in their mouths and raised their illegal beers in toast to their sultan.

“Well, look at you, gaining friends and winning influence.”

“Best to keep the locals happy,” Bolan observed. “Besides. We’ve got problems.”

Sifuentes blinked. “What kind of problems?”

“A guy walked in a minute ago and sat at a table in the corner with three other guys.”

Sifuentes casually glanced at the four men, who looked local but were wearing Western clothing. “Yeah?”

“He was one of the two guys who followed us from our room half an hour ago.”

“I didn’t know we’d been followed.”

“I wasn’t positive. Now I am.”

“So, what do we do?”

Bolan admitted to himself it was a good question. Sifuentes worked security for Viking Associates. The company hired ex-military men as security guards aboard major ships whose trade routes passed through known piracy corridors. Bolan was a paid employee of Viking as well, but he was undercover. The most pressing problem facing him and Sifuentes was that they were armed guards who weren’t currently armed. They were not licensed bodyguards, or anyone’s VIP security detail with diplomatic immunity. They could not carry guns in the Sultanate of Oman. They were issued arms only when they were out at sea in international waters, and Bolan had not been out yet.

“Harsh language?” Sifuentes suggested.

“Broken bottles and bar stools might be better. But at least two of those guys are packing, and I don’t like the odds.”

“You’re an observant son of a bitch.”

“Here’s what we do. We break out of here.”

“Then what?”

“We split up.”

Sifuentes’s face fell. “Aww, shit, man. Don’t you pull a fade on me now! Just when I was starting to like you!”

“No, escape and evade. They left one guy outside. They can’t chase us both. These guys can’t keep up with you, and despite what you might think about a guy my age, I can shake these guys.”

Sifuentes began to see it. “So they got nothing left but to go back to staking out our room again.”

“Right.”

“Then what—we camp on the beach and call for extraction?”

“No, their initial freak-out will give us some time. We lead them on a tour of the neighborhood and then go back to our room.”

“Then what?”

“You call Viking while I go shopping. Then we settle their hash.”

Sifuentes smiled. “You sexy bastard.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“So?”

“So, Sifuentes, one, two, three.” Bolan nodded. “Go!”

They shot to their feet and hit the door running. The men at the back table shouted in consternation. Two pulled pistols while the other two pulled phones. Bolan heard a gunshot, and patrons began shouting and screaming as he and Sifuentes burst out onto the waterfront. The sun was just starting to go down. Bolan broke west for the suq, dodging longshoremen, motor carts and a surprising number of camels.

“See ya!”

* * *

Viking Associates kept a couple of rooms in a crumbling Portuguese Colonial for employees in transition or on R & R in Salalah. Bolan did a perimeter check around the grounds and called Sifuentes. “Sitrep.”

“Clear in here.”

Bolan went around back and made a fairly risky rusty-drainpipe ascent to the third floor with his purchases from the suq. He spoke quietly at the open window. “Coming in.”

“Clear.”

Bolan rolled into the room.

Sifuentes was visibly relieved. “Oh, man. Tell me you got guns.”

“No, I couldn’t get any guns.”

“Oh, shit...”

“We’ll get guns.”

“Yeah? From where?”

Bolan reached into the doubled plastic bag he had brought from the suq. He drew a nine-inch, crescent-shaped blade of a khanjar dagger. He flipped the blade into his hand and held it out to Sifuentes. “From them.”

“Dude.” Sifuentes took the wickedly curved dagger. “You are so hard-core.”

“Did you call Viking?”

“Yeah, they’re sending a boat from the arsenal ship.”

“ETA?”

“Dawn. Or maybe noon. And they can’t bring any guns. And they gotta go through customs.” Sifuentes was an Army Ranger veteran of Afghanistan. He’d eaten a shit sandwich or two in his life. He got that “Rangers lead the way” look in his eyes. “They’ll let us know and pick us up at the pier.”

Bolan made his determination. “These guys are either going to hit us, or they’re not.”

Sifuentes nodded. “Sounds legit.”

“I think these guys are locals. I don’t think we got made for ship security, and the local chapter of the Arabian Sea Benevolent Pirate Association has a bounty on guys like us.”

“And?”

“They want to play pirate? Then quick’s the word and sharp’s the action. Repel all boarders.”

Sifuentes held up his blade. “With Port Salalah souvenir daggers?”

“It starts with that.” Bolan took out three more daggers and handed one more to Sifuentes. “Then it escalates.”

Sifuentes held a dagger in each hand. He laughed aloud. “Fuckin’ ay, Bubba! We got catapults and boiling oil?”

Bolan reached into his bag and took out four plastic squeeze bottles of French dish soap. “No, but this contains lanolin. Go pour one on both back windowsills and pour a bunch down the outside of the drainpipe I climbed up.”

Sifuentes smiled like it was Christmas and ran to lubricate all methods of third-floor rear access. Bolan did not share the young ex-Ranger’s enthusiasm. This was going to happen very fast or go south even faster. He took several moments to spritz out the second two bottles in ever-widening concentric circles on the tiles in front of the door. Sifuentes returned and was inordinately pleased by what he saw. “We can take these assholes! We can take ’em!”

Bolan tossed away the empty soap bottle. “With science.”

“Dude—” Sifuentes gazed at Bolan in awe. “You’re, like, Bill Nye the Assassin Guy.” He sniffed at the French aromatherapy filling the foyer. “Unless their Spidey senses detect lavender.”

“There is that. So I want you lurking in the door of the kitchenette. When they kick in the door, there’s going to be a puppy pile right here in front of me. It’s going to get all stabby. The first gun I reap I am kicking or throwing to you, and then it is all on you. If I still have a pulse, I’ll grab the next gun and we take them all down.” Bolan didn’t usually repeat himself, but he locked gazes with the young Ranger and held it. “This is going to happen real fast.”

“I hear you, brother.” Sifuentes held a nine-inch Omani hand-scythe in each fist. “If the guns don’t come, then it’s you and me against them, bro. It gets all stabby. Real fast.”

Bolan nodded his approval. “Let’s do it.”

“Lights on or off?”

“On, and put on some music. Something inviting.”

Sifuentes’s thumb rapidly roamed the screen of his smartphone. “Here, dig this. It’s dope.” Angry, Mexican heavy metal thundered and snarled out of the phone’s surprisingly powerful speaker. Sifuentes made the horns with his other hand. “Zombie Bullfighters of Death.”

“Well, if a couple of brother Vikings have to have theme music for a pirate ambush on the Arabian Peninsula...”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Sifuentes enthused.

“Take your position.”

The former Ranger took his position in the kitchen doorway. Somewhere along the line Sifuentes had forgotten that he was the senior Viking associate in charge, but Bolan had that effect on people. The Executioner pushed an ottoman to the left of the door and proceeded to wait. Less than five minutes later he saw shadows beneath the door. Bolan pointed a dagger toward the floor. Sifuentes nodded that he had seen.

Bolan estimated at least three targets in the hallway. Sifuentes’s head snapped back toward the kitchen. He rapidly pantomimed hand-over-hand.

Someone was climbing the drainpipe.

That someone screamed as his hands suddenly closed around the soaped pipe and he fell two stories to the cobblestones below. A fist punched through the door in front of Bolan. It was gloved and holding a hand grenade.

The Executioner lashed out. The crescent moon of Arabian steel just about took off the assassin’s hand at the wrist. The grenadier screamed, and the bomb fell in a spray of blood as its cotter lever pinged away. Bolan snagged the falling grenade and went for the double play as he flung it at Sifuentes. “Hot potato!”

The younger man didn’t blink. He snagged the live grenade and hurled it out the kitchen window. The lethal orb detonated two stories down, and the fallen drainpipe climber screamed as he ate steel rain. The door smashed open beneath a boot.

“Allahu akhbar!”

A man charged in redecorating the flat with a stubby machine pistol. Bolan reversed his blade in his hand and lunged as lead flew and brass sprayed.

The man caught Bolan too late out of the corner of his eye. “Allahu akh—”

Bolan felt flesh part as he drew his sickle of steel from the killer’s left collarbone to his right ear. The assassin went boneless in double arterial spray. Bolan got two fingers on the falling machine pistol, but it fell away from his grasp and hit the floor. He got the toe of his boot into it and sent the Mini-Uzi spinning across the tiles toward Sifuentes. “Now or not at all!”

He dived for the weapon.

Bolan rose.

The third man leveled his weapon.

The Executioner hurled his blade. A curved khanjar dagger was no sticker, but about half a pound of steel and buffalo horn hit the assassin in the face and his shots went high and wide. The killer staggered as Sifuentes drilled a burst into his chest. Bolan ripped a grenade off the assassin’s belt as he fell, and pulled the pin. The remaining man in the hall fired burst after burst through the doorway, but he had no angle. He screamed in fear as Bolan pulled a bank shot and bounced the grenade off the far wall in the hall and sent it out of sight. The bomb whip-cracked. The killer in the hall’s scream was nearly lost in the explosion’s echoes as he fell.

Bolan scooped up a Mini-Uzi and wiped blood off the action. “Any movement out back?”

Sifuentes took a quick peek out the kitchen window. “Just one guy in puddles and piles.”

Executioner took a quick look down the hall. The last assassin had taken a Russian F1 hand grenade at kissing distance and turned the walls into modern art. Lodgers on the first and second floors were screaming. “Hey, you remember your plan about waiting down on the beach?”

Sifuentes nodded. “Yeah?”

“Call Viking. Tell them that’s where we’ll be.” Bolan quickly searched the fallen. “We’re going out the kitchen window and down the drainpipe.”

“Cool.”

“Don’t slip on the soap.”

Chapter Two

The Arabian Sea

The Huey descended toward the ship that was their new, temporary home. Both Bolan and Sifuentes had been surprised when the civilian-marked chopper had flown right up to the pier at dawn and someone had texted the former Ranger, instructing them to get on board, and fast. Bolan took in the ship. The Alice O’Kieffe was a small blue ’70s vintage coastal freighter. She had been converted into an arsenal ship. The majority of ports of call on the planet did not allow armed civilian ships to sail into port. The major shipping security companies like the Rampart Group and Viking got around that by keeping ships offshore and at strategic points in the shipping lanes where men and weapons could be loaded and off-loaded in international waters. The ship had a makeshift helicopter deck. Four shirtless, muscular, tattooed men were currently playing a game of two-on-two basketball. The central painted H made for a decent basketball key. The players stopped and squinted upward as the helicopter came in out of the brassy midmorning sun. Bolan raised an appreciative eyebrow at the sight of the copper-colored woman in a camo bikini sunning herself on top of a lifeboat out of sight of the rest of the crew.

Sifuentes smirked. “Dude, I know you have like, superpowers and stuff.”

“And stuff,” Bolan acknowledged.

“But B.B.? Don’t even think about it. Abe thinks she’s a lesbian. Mono thinks she might have a dick. Either way, she doesn’t mix with her coworkers, and if she did, Abe has first dibs.”

Bolan filed away that minefield of information.

The chopper touched down on the helideck and ship’s crewmen came out to unload the crates Bolan and Sifuentes had been sitting on. By their banter the soldier made them for Malaysians. A man who could have been Sifuentes’s little brother but with even more tattoos and a ’70s-porn-worthy mustache ran up as the rotors stopped. “Sifu! Haven’t seen you since Mombasa!”

“Mono!” The two Latino soldiers engaged in some sort of elaborate hand-jive. Another Latino sporting the startling combination of a beard and a mullet joined the pair, and a conversation in rapid-fire Spanish commenced. A black man with a shaved head eyeballed Bolan, then a large Polynesian man rumbled forward. “Hey! Sifu! Who’s the skinny little white lizard?”

Bolan topped Sifuentes by a head and had a lean but well-muscled physique. Then again, the big Polynesian topped Bolan by a head and looked to be a rock-solid two hundred and fifty pounds. Bolan smiled and stuck out his hand. “You must be Abe.”

Abe stared at the hand and then at Bolan like he had to be kidding.

Bolan shrugged. All eyes turned as the bikini-clad woman walked barefoot onto the helideck. She was Latina and built like a bantamweight female MMA fighter except that she clearly had some surgical augmentation filling out her bikini top. It was hard to gauge the face beneath the big mirrored sunglasses, but her lips were sensual and a short-going-to-bushy-shag haircut framed it all. The mirrored shades looked Bolan up and down. “Che, Sifu. Who’s your friend?”

“This guy?” Sifuentes enthused. “Let me tell you! This guy, he—”

“I haven’t seen blue eyes in a while.” The woman took a long look into Bolan’s arctic blue eyes. “Haven’t seen eyes like that ever.”

The woman turned and put a wiggle in her walk for Bolan as she went to the helicopter gangway. “See you around, Blue.”

The soldier felt the trouble with a capital T coming, but he smiled at the sight anyway. Big Abe’s face went from scowling water buffalo to snarling demon tiki. “Listen, white boy, you gonna—”

“That’s white man, to you.”

The helideck went silent. Abe reared to his full height in outrage. “Fucking Viking, we get all the shit details! Rampart?” Big Abe stabbed a massive finger at Bolan accusingly as he began venting his grievances. “They don’t want no brown people! They want white boys with beards like you!”

Bolan stroked his chin and prepared himself to fight a Samoan who was twice his size and ten years younger. “I don’t have a beard. I applied to Rampart Group, and they told me I was too old and I could take a Viking Associate’s slot if I still wanted a job. And that is white man to you, poi-boy. Don’t make me tell you a third time.”

The Latino contingent stared in shock.

Big Abe roared as his hands clenched into fists. “Poi is Hawaiian!”

Bolan was confident he could take Big Abe in hand-to-hand combat. He had severe doubts about being able to beat him in a stand-up fight. “You saying you never pounded taro when you were a kid, uso?” Bolan countered.

“Hmm!” Abe grunted at the Samoan word for “brother,” and Bolan knew he had scored. A slow, rueful smile crossed the big Samoan’s face. “I mighta. Once or twice. You been to my islands?”

“Does American Samoa count? I worked with a few brothers from there back in the day.”

The tension on the helideck eased considerably.

Big Abe shrugged his massive shoulders. “Where I was born, where I signed up. Where I call home. So I guess it counts. You?”

Bolan told the truth. “Massachusetts.”

“Never worked with no Bay Staters.”

Bolan smiled. “Check out the big brain on Abe.”

“We had to memorize all the states, capitals and nicknames in school.” Big Abe looked out over the Arabian Sea. “Truth? Don’t know who is farther from home, brudda.”

Bolan consulted his mental map. “You, by about three thousand miles.”

Big Abe laughed. “Check out the big brain on Blue!”