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A stream of cartel soldiers burst from the building.
When one of the gunners removed a cell phone from his pocket, Bolan drilled him with a single 5.56 mm round, then ripped a series of three-round bursts along the line of gunmen limned by a streetlight.
The Executioner sent another grenade downrange, an incendiary round that blew on impact, loosing flames that spread from wall to wall, rolling through the open doorway, setting fire to bodies lying on the pavement.
He could have kept on firing, making sure that everyone within his line of sight was dead or dying, but he was literally burning up Brognola’s time now, painfully aware that the odds of finding him declined precipitately after twenty-four hours.
If he wasn’t dead already, Brognola had roughly two hours left. El Psicópata didn’t keep his prey alive for any longer than it took to butcher them. But Brognola didn’t fit the killer’s victim profile, which meant there were no rules.
All Bolan could do was put the pedal to the metal and keep rolling on, full speed ahead. And God help anyone who stood in his way…
Nor is there any law more just than that he who has plotted death shall perish by his own plot.
—Ovid
I speak the only language predators understand. I fight fire with fire, and damn the consequences.
—Mack Bolan
For Special Agent Samuel S. Hicks. Drug Enforcement Administration
End of Watch: November 19, 2008
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
Note to Readers
El Paso, Texas
The big man—stocky, fiftysomething, with gray hair that nearly matched the color of his suit—moved easily along a second-story hallway in the Gateway Rio Grande Hotel, a plastic bucket in one hand, the key to room 209 in the other.
He was tired at half-past midnight and was running late for bed. Another round of meetings started bright and early in the morning, but the dinner he’d consumed—tamales, enchiladas,