Free Blood Testament by Don Pendleton Page A

any chance at all, the soldier would retrieve Brognola's family — or wreak such awesome vengeance on the enemy that Hal might find some private solace in the ashes.
    Gruffly he dismissed the morbid thoughts and concentrated on the image of a family reunion. He could not afford to write his family off so early in the game, when there was still a fighting chance of their recovery. He had until six o'clock, and in that time he would be scanning the computer files for any Dino/Gino sound-alikes who fit the bill.
    The operation reeked of Mob involvement, and he had already put the several groups of active terrorists out of mind. Despite their tendency toward violence and abduction, none had any use for the existing roster of protected witnesses. The rare defectors, others who were brave enough to testify in trials resulting from the recent wave of urban terror, were too well-known already, marked for death on sight. As far as undercover operatives, there had been slim success at infiltrating terrorist brigades, and Justice had no agents currently in place.
    It would be syndicate or nothing, and the thought did not restore Brognola's confidence. He knew the kind of talent readily available for jobs like this and realized that any one of — what, a thousand mercenary guns? — might whack his family for the hell of it, regardless of his acquiescence to demands.
    So many enemies, and every one a proved killer. He could never hope to see his family alive again without a killer of his own to even up the odds.
    A killer like Mack Bolan, sure. An Executioner.

7
    The charter flight dropped Bolan at an airport near the University of Maryland, three miles from Hyattsville. It offered him the dual advantages of light security and close proximity to Washington, his final Georgetown destination only ten miles as the crow flies. Bolan tipped the pilot from his war chest — heavily enough to keep him happy, not so heavily that it would set him talking in the local bars — and headed off in search of a rental car.
    He would have saved an hour with a scheduled direct flight to Washington, but Bolan wasn't interested in taking chances with security. His luggage held enough assorted hardware to ignite a minor war, and he would be needing it if Leo's problem was as serious as it had sounded on the phone. Hal's problem, he corrected as he spied the Avis window. Either way it cut, he was needed, and the knowledge of a friend in danger left him no alternative.
    He took a midsize Ford and stowed his luggage in the trunk then retrieved the Beretta 93-R with its shoulder rigging, tucking it beneath his jacket as he slid behind the wheel. A roadside turnout halfway into Hyattsville provided Bolan with an opportunity to slip on the rigging, and he felt better as he nosed the Ford back into traffic. Whatever happened next, he was prepared to answer fire with fire. No longer feeling naked, vulnerable, Bolan focused upon his mission in D.C.
    There had been no time for elaboration on the telephone, no inclination for Sticker to discuss his business on an open line. The urgency was obvious, and Bolan knew it was not in Leo's nature to exaggerate. The open conversation would be enough to ruin him if anyone was tapping in. By the very nature of the risk involved he had communicated desperation, and it wasn't Leo's style to overdramatize.
    The Executioner recalled another time, in Pittsfield, when the undercover Fed had sounded equally upset. On that occasion, Turrin's wife had been abducted and held hostage by a group of renegades within the Marinello Family. The hostiles had him pegged for an informer and were planning to exert the kind of leverage that never failed. But they failed disastrously by omitting Bolan from their calculations. They had not prepared themselves for hell on earth, and in the end they were unable to stand hard before the flames.
    Bolan knew Hal and Leo would brief him when they met. For now, his sole objective was to arrive at the