Backlash

by Don Pendleton

  Annotation

  Following a tip on a drug run off the coast of Miami, Mack Bolan kicks open a hornet's nest. A dead courier turns out to be a government spook working free-lance for a Nicaraguan power monger, who is running drugs to finance the overthrow of the Sandinista regime.

  Upping the ante, this man who would be dictator has had a lot of help from the CIA. But now the Company wants out… and they want Bolan to protect their new white knight in a covert plan for a stabilized Nicaragua.

  The operation has all the hallmarks of a classic disaster. But the Executioner has spent most of his life on the front line. If necessary, that's where he's prepared to die.

  * * *

  Don Pendleton's

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  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

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  * * *

  Don Pendleton's

  Mack Bolan

  Backlash

  Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.

  Abraham Lincoln

  I realized a long time ago what had to be done and dedicated my life to doing it. Regrets? Only that the fight rages on and that America still needs men with my skills.

  Mack Bolan

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Charlie McDade for his contribution to this work.

  Chapter One

  Mack Bolan killed the engine of the small launch, letting it drift with the swells for a couple of minutes. Finally it came close enough for him to get a rope around one of the channel markers. The freighter loomed up ahead, a slab of mat-black against the dark blue sky. Smears of phosphorescent algae washed against Bolan's launch, momentarily glowing a dull greenish-yellow, then darkening as the next wave carried them past.

  Using a pair of powerful Zeiss glasses, he swept the deck of the big freighter, the SS Panamanian Queen, from stem to stern. Her running lights were out, and only two small lamps glowed high in the superstructure. As best as he could tell, the deck was deserted except for a single sailor, leaning over the aft rail. The red tip of the man's cigarette waxed and waned like some distant star as he alternately puffed and dangled the butt over the water. Each time he flicked it with a snap of his finger, a shower of sparks fell toward the water far below, winking out long before it reached the sea.

  Bolan was playing a hunch, and he crossed his fingers, hoping he wasn't wasting a whole night on a wild-goose chase. Talking the DEA into lending him the boat hadn't been easy. Even so, the effort was nothing if it paid off as he suspected it would. But the warrior was trapped between a rock and a hard place. Alone on the water he was sure to attract attention from the Coast Guard if he was spotted by a patrol boat or a surveillance chopper. And if the Guard didn't spot him, there was still a chance the smugglers might. There was no place to hide.

  The drug trade off the Florida coast was a lot worse than most people suspected, the dealers themselves were twice as brutal as the newspapers reported. The wholesale slaughter of families, a practice imported from Colombia, had made the old days of Mafia heroin trafficking seem sedate in comparison.

  This new world was a jungle, and those who drifted through it were unlikely to be missed by society, a fact that hadn't escaped the cartel's notice. Burn them, or even think about it, and chances were that you disappeared without a trace. Your family — if you had one — wasn't going to run to the cops. And your friends — if you had any — were probably run through the same meat grinder. True blue right to the very end.

  Bolan had deliberately chosen the launch for its low profile. It had been customized for speed by its previous owner, specifically for high-speed runs, before being confiscated by the DEA. Like most of the fast boats used by drug runners, it was more stable at fifty knots than it was dead in the water. The sea was running high, and an occasional swell slapped high enough on the gunwale to slosh a little water into the bottom of the boat. Bolan bailed it out enough to keep his ankles dry, but resigned himself to the discomfort of kneeling in an inch or two of water.

  It was one o'clock in the morning, and the rendezvous, if it was to take place at all, would have to be in the next hour or so. They were more than an hour out, and the early-morning fleet of sport boats full of tourists would start its run around four. Bolan's man would want to be well clear of the waterfront by then.

  He checked the deck of the Panamanian Queen again. The smoking sailor was gone.

  The screws of the freighter turned slowly, its huge engines confined to fighting the ebbing tide. At one-thirty Bolan heard the first distant rumble of the courier. It came and went, rising and falling like the tide itself, and Bolan knew its engines were whining every time the screws came out of a trough, then growling as the blades bit on the downswell. The sporadic bursts of sound grew longer and more frequent as the runner approached at high speed.

  Bolan stared into the darkness, trying to fix the sound of the racing engines. Any high sign would be by light. With everyone from the Coast Guard to the competition monitoring frequencies from one end of the marine band to the other, radio was out of the question. Bolan grabbed the glasses and swung them in the direction of the sound. He waited what seemed like an eternity before switching back to the freighter. Still nothing.

  The droning of the engines grew louder, then slacked off. There had still been no signal, but Bolan realized the runner must be in visual contact with the freighter. In the glasses the mainland bobbed in and out of sight as his own boat rose and fell. Like a huge mound of gray and glitter hovering on the tide, Florida seemed to be a live thing or a floating island out of some Japanese fable. The first light came from the freighter, and Bolan almost missed it. At first he thought it was a cigarette lighter, but it was too perfect for an open flame. It flashed once, went out, then flashed twice in rapid succession.

  Bolan swung the glasses in the direction the torch had been aimed and caught a single answering flash. Quicker than the wink of a firefly, it came and went. Like a kid waiting patiently with a jar, Bolan watched, hoping for another glimmer, but there was nothing more. The engine slacked off still further, dropping to a low rumble.

  It was too risky for the warrior to start his own engine yet. He'd have to wait until the drop had been made and the runner pushed off. Even if someone on the freighter heard him, there would be no attempt to warn the runner. By unwritten law, once the drop was made, the couriers were on their own. To guarantee their own safety, they relied on their knowledge of the coastline and enough horsepower to outrun nearly anything on the water but a hydroplane
. It was a risky job, but it paid well, and most of the couriers were in it as much for the kicks as for the money.

  Bolan saw one last flash from the freighter, then heard the slap of a rope ladder being dropped over the side. He picked it out after several seconds and watched as two men climbed over the rail, heavy canvas bags strapped to their shoulders. The slender shape of a Cigarette bobbed over the tops of the swells, its engine burbling as the exhaust tubes rose and fell. In the glasses Bolan could just make out the shape of the man at the wheel. As far as he could tell, the runner was alone.

  The engine noise died altogether, and the driver reached out to grab the end of the ladder to hold himself steady. The nimbleness of the sailors was almost admirable. The bottom man, his feet no more than a yard above the side of the Cigarette, clung to the ladder and leaned back to drop his package into the bottom of the boat. Even at this distance Bolan could hear the dull thud as the sack hit. The sailor reached up for his partner's bag, then dropped it onto the first. This time Bolan heard nothing as the first sack cushioned the impact.

  As the two men scrambled back up the ladder, the pilot pushed off with a boat hook, maneuvering himself far enough away from the freighter's hull to risk the rising swells, turned his engine over and swung in a sharp arc. The phosphorescent algae swirled behind him, momentarily agitated and marking his passage with a glowing wake.

  The engine rumbled, and the boat took off like a dart. The two sailors were long gone, and Bolan untied his own craft. He cranked it up, the big Chevy 454 engine growling like an angry dragster. By the time he opened the throttle, the Cigarette was little more than a dot, barely visible without the binoculars.

  It was a race for the coastline now, and the Executioner had nothing to lose by opening it up all the way. His boat seemed to stand on its twin screws, its hull sliding over the waves instead of cutting through them. He knew he could get fairly close before the courier heard him over the roar of his own engine. And if the Cigarette made it into the tangled canals and lagoons along the coast, he'd be long gone. This was a one-shot opportunity. If he spooked the courier and didn't nail him, he'd never get a second chance.

  Bolan adjusted the Uzi hanging from his shoulder and made sure the safety was off, while steering with one hand. It was a heady sensation, one he hadn't had in a long time. There was something about high speed on open water that appealed to him. Despite his normally cautious nature, he was more than willing to sit back and enjoy the ride.

  They were approaching the outer banks at better than eighty knots. Bolan was closing the gap, but it was going to be close — closer than he liked. He could see patches of white water now. The turbulent wake of the Cigarette still fizzed and bubbled as he ran parallel, about twenty yards to the left.

  The shimmer of light on the mainland began to backdrop the speeding courier, and Bolan could see his quarry starkly etched against the glow. Any moment, the Cigarette could pick him up, and he shifted the Uzi again, anxious to have it at his fingertips.

  The courier began a broad turn to the left, and Bolan was forced to change course. The Cigarette was dead ahead, broadside, no more than one hundred yards away when the courier spotted his pursuer. He tightened the curve, swinging sharply south, and the warrior caught the flash of an automatic rifle almost at once.

  It was impossible to hear anything over the roaring engines, and his windshield shattered with the second burst. Slivers splashed over him like a shower of solid rain. Dustlike particles powdered the skin of his hands and forearms, causing them to glitter as if he had been coated with metal-flake paint. Letting go of the wheel with one hand, Bolan waved the Uzi in the general direction of the Cigarette. He wanted to keep the courier honest, not kill him. If at all possible, he wanted the man alive.

  Gouts of water rose in the air a few yards ahead of the fleeing boat, then Bolan stitched a tight line across the courier's stern. But the guy wasn't ready to go belly-up just yet. He jerked the wheel and came about, now barreling straight toward the Executioner under a full head of steam. Bracing his assault rifle on the top of his windscreen, he opened up, the hail of fire digging chunks of fiberglass out of the launch's prow. Long, irregular canals chipped the paint and sent splinters flying in every direction. Bolan, trying to keep his balance and to avoid the charging Cigarette, returned fire reluctantly, but the courier gave him no choice.

  There was a sudden deep rumble, and a plume of fire spouted up behind the driver. One of Bolan's slugs must have hit a fuel line. The warrior waved, trying to get the courier to turn around, but the man was too busy reloading. The flame spurted forward suddenly, then expanded like a desert flower blooming in a Disney nature film.

  The Cigarette roared past, and Bolan jerked his throttle back and dived for the deck. He could see the courier's face frozen in that brief instant of understanding, when the full, fatal imminence is first comprehended.

  Bolan had his head and arms covered as the boat went up. He scrambled back to his feet in time to see the courier spiraling head over heels, like a puppet tossed out of a speeding car. The boat was hidden by an orange ball, some of its pieces cartwheeling end over end before landing back in the sea.

  Then the concussion slammed into the warrior, knocking him back on his heels, deafening him for a moment.

  In the sudden quiet Bolan stared at the flames. Black smoke billowed off the water where the fuel burned a brilliant orange. As the swells passed through, the fire rose and fell, writhing like a living thing, twisting and turning as if it were trying to get away from the sea. Bolan listened for the courier, but he heard no call for help. Cutting back on his throttle, he skirted the blaze, letting his boat come as close as he dared. He could feel the heat on his skin. Gusts of wind covered him with oily soot that smeared under his fingers as he tried to wipe it away.

  The Cigarette had been shattered. A few scraps of foam rubber and splintered wood drifted on the swells. Some, like rafts, spun away from the blaze, their tops coated with burning fuel. The launch's prow bumped against something soft, which was hidden by the water. He slowed to a crawl, then stopped the engine altogether, letting the boat drift. He plowed his hands through the water, leaning far over the side. He felt it for a second, then it slipped away. The warrior found the boat hook lying in the bottom of his boat and stabbed into the dark waters.

  He felt it strike something, then whatever it was drifted away under the force of his probe. He tried again, this time lowering the hook gently. He got lucky.

  Low in the water, almost the full length of the pole, he found it again. Twisting the boat hook, he managed to sink the single sharp tine into the fabric. Slowly he tugged the heavy object back toward the surface.

  It was a canvas bag. As Bolan tugged it into the boat, streaming from both sides as water gushed out from under the flap keeping it closed, he felt the boat strike something. He dropped the bag and moved to the front, grabbing the boat hook from the deck pallet and moving cautiously to keep his balance.

  He dropped the pole into the water, moving it slowly from side to side. When he found nothing, he moved to the opposite side of the boat. This time he felt something almost at once. The pole struck a soft object, and he twisted the hooked end, then jerked upward. The item wasn't as heavy as the first, and the pole came up easily. He leaned over the side, reaching down at the same time, plunging his hand into the water up to his elbow. Again he felt cloth under his fingers. He grabbed hold and pulled it to the surface.

  It was the courier's arm. Torn away by the blast and charred by the burning fuel, it was snarled in the remains of the man's shirt. Bolan brought the limb on board, placed it gently in the bottom of the boat and went back to probing. Five minutes later he found a second sack, hauled it in and dropped it beside the first.

  The flames had begun to die down now. The fuel burned quickly, and as the water continued to spread it to a thinner and thinner layer, the blaze had begun to exhaust itself. Bolan used the glasses to scan the area surrounding the fire. He didn't want
to leave the courier's body in the water if he could help it — not so much for humanitarian considerations as for identification. He thought he knew whom he'd been following, but things changed so suddenly — and so illogically — in the world in which he found himself that nothing was certain.

  He restarted the engine, taking the wheel loosely and steering through one more slow circuit. Then he grabbed a powerful flashlight, and trained its beam on the water just ahead of the boat.

  He was ready to pack it in when he saw what he was looking for. Face up, his eyes staring, the courier drifted slowly past, his remaining arm as listless as seaweed. His bare chest, obvious even in the murky water, had been charred and blistered by the flames. Bolan killed the engine and grabbed for the hook. It seemed almost sacrilegious, but there was no other way to do it. Snagging the hook in tattered clothing, the warrior held the pole straight in the air, maintaining enough pull to keep the body from floating free.

  Leaning over the side, he grappled for the belt and pulled the corpse into the boat. He dragged the dead man aft and covered him with a greasy tarpaulin. The last of the flames flickered out as Bolan turned the big Chevy engine over.

  So far he'd been lucky. He'd been able to trace the courier, and that, regardless of whether the man under the tarp was the man he thought he was, was the next link in the chain. With that link in place, the chain came almost full circle, trapping the kingpin inside a loop he couldn't possibly wiggle out of. That made the night's work worth it. All he had to do now was to get back to port without being spotted. He didn't need the hassle of trying to explain the man under the tarp, not to vice cops who'd heard every theme and variation, and not to the Coast Guard, who'd just as soon not be involved at all, and were running short of patience with the whole sordid business.

  When the light winked on to his left, Bolan glanced at it briefly, then kicked the engine full out. If the chopper spotted him, it would certainly look him over. If it was the Coast Guard, the best he could hope for was a night in jail. If it was anybody else, he'd be lucky to spend a night anywhere. Frustrated by the escalating violence, the cops and the DEA were beginning to shoot first. It seemed the only way to avoid being shot themselves.