Royal Flush

A bonus for Able Team readers: Early Fire Deep background on Able Team's mentor, featuring Mack Bolan in Vietnam

Mack Bolan was tired.

It had been one hell of a night.

He and Sniper Team Able had penetrated deep into Vietcong-held territory. The mission had been a success. Two VC chieftains and two string pullers from up north had gone down. The kills had been quick, four head shots as the targets stood around a fire. Then Bolan and the team had begun their withdrawal.

There was a skirmish with another band of VC coming in from patrol. But Sniper Team Able came through all right.

Long months in Vietnam had honed their survival instincts. They had even begun to think like the Vietcong.

Now five men trudged wearily into the Special Forces base camp at Cam Lo.

Zitka and Bloodbrother, the scouts; Gadgets Schwarz and Rosario Blancanales, the flank men, and Bolan.

Sergeant Mack Bolan.

The leader of Sniper Team Able.

Zitka and Bloodbrother gave Bolan the thumbs-up sign and joined Gadgets and Pol on their way to some much-needed sack time.

Bolan was covered in sweat even though it was a relatively clear, cool night. This was rice country and the paddies were almost dry. They were like mud flats. The combination of the boot-sucking terrain and the dikes sapped their strength, making each forward movement laborious. All this, compounded by the tension inherent in a mission behind enemy lines, had made for an exhausting trek.

The CO's orderly spotted Bolan from across the compound and hurried over, his face anxious.

"Sarge, Lieutenant Colonel Crawford wants to see you. Right away."

Bolan nodded. "I was headed that way, Corporal."

So the old man was waiting for him. That was no surprise. The colonel always waited up, like a father worried about a son who stayed out late.

The young "penetration specialist" smiled at the thought. The colonel could never take the place of Sam Bolan, back in the States. But Crawford had been observing Bolan's progress and had taken Bolan as a green recruit and taught him what he needed to know to survive in this damn war. Not only to survive, but to give his best.

Bolan walked by a private with an M-16 pulling guard duty at the door of the HQ Quonset, and went inside.

A thin-faced E-3 sat at a desk in the outer office pushing papers.

Bolan nodded to him and raised an eyebrow, jerking a thumb at the closed door of the colonel's office.

The sergeant shook his head and started to say something.

Before he could get a word out, the door burst open.

The prettiest whirlwind Bolan had ever seen exploded out of the colonel's office and ran smack into him.

The woman looked about twenty-three with a shock of chestnut hair and a face that was startlingly attractive. She wore fatigues and from her shoulder hung a camera and a compact tape recorder. Piercingly blue eyes stared in anger at Bolan, then dropped to the black lettering on an O.D. green name tag on his tiger-striped camou fatigues.

"Sergeant Mack Bolan?"

"That's right."

"The one they've started to call the Executioner?"

Scorn dripped from her words.

Bolan shrugged, suddenly wary.

"I've been called that."

Colonel Crawford appeared in the doorway of his office at that moment. He ignored the woman and returned Bolan's salute.

"Come in, Sergeant. Welcome back. Come in and report."

With hands on hips that shapeless fatigues could not disguise, the woman persisted in questioning Bolan.

"A successful mission, Sergeant?"

A live wire, thought Bolan.

Feline fury flashed in her eyes.

"That's classified, lady. Excuse me."

"How many babies did you kill? How many women and old men?"

The words slashed at him like an invisible bayonet, but he kept his face emotionless and his mouth shut.

"I, uh, see you've met Miss Desmond," Colonel Crawford said dryly.

"We haven't been formally introduced," grunted Bolan.

The woman stuck her hand out. "I'm not afraid of a little blood, Sergeant. Jill Desmond. I'm a..."

"Journalist," Bolan finished for her.

His fingers closed over her hand. The gesture was brief, cool.

"Miss Desmond's here for a close-up of the war," the colonel said. "I've told her what they told her in Saigon. Our operations in this area are highly sensitive."

"I'll bet they are," snapped Jill Desmond. "That's why I'm here. I've had enough brass to get this far, Colonel. What makes you think I'll stop now? This is where the real dirty work goes on, out here in the boonies. And I'm not going back until I've seen it for myself, so I can tell the people back home what it's really like. They deserve to know."

"I'm not denying that, Miss Desmond..." the Colonel began.

"You're not trying to cover up the crimes of men like Sergeant Bolan here, are you?" She glanced at Bolan. "There's a reason they call you the Executioner, isn't there, Sergeant?"

Bolan studied the woman's face. She seemed intelligent, but you sure couldn't tell it by the accusations, the lack of understanding, the naivete.

"I'm going to find out the truth about this war." Jill Desmond bristled. "Not the whitewashed official version you people are peddling." She swung around to face the colonel again. "Then I'm going to tell everyone who'll listen just what a barbaric, immoral thing this war really is."

She flicked one more morally outraged glance at Bolan, then stalked out of the Quonset.

"If we were barbaric murderers," Crawford grunted as he and Bolan stepped into his inner office, "I wonder what makes her think she'd be safe?"

"She doesn't know the jungle yet," agreed Bolan. "But she cares. She's all right."

"Yeah, but she makes it harder for us to do our job," the colonel reminded him. "Speaking of which, have a seat and report."

Bone weary, Bolan settled into a chair across the desk from the colonel, who nodded as Bolan related the kills in the village and the firefight in the jungle afterward.

"Good work, son," he said when Bolan finished. The corners of the CO's mouth drew back in a grimace. "You must be damn tired."

"I could use some sleep," said Bolan, shrugging.

"Wish I didn't have to tell you this after a mission like that, but there's no ducking a bad job, I always say."

Bolan waited, trying to ignore a foreboding in his gut.

"Sir?"

"I can't send Jill Desmond back to Saigon, much as I'd like to," Crawford growled. "I've got orders from the top to cooperate with her."

"She must have a lot of pull back home."

"Enough. Anyway, she's here for as long as she wants to stay. And while she's here, I've got to have somebody I can trust keep an eye on her."

Bolan's mouth tightened.

A baby-sitter.

The colonel wanted him to baby-sit the live-wire journalist who had a mad-on for anything military.

"I, uh, could think of better choices for the job than me, sir."

The CO chuckled.

"I'll bet you can, but I can't. The lady doesn't seem to like you, Sergeant, and I don't blame you for not liking her, but if anybody can keep her alive while she's out here, it's you."

"Is that an order, sir?"

"It's an order."

Bolan stood.

"Then I guess I'd better catch up with her and get her locked up somewhere for the night."

"Just don't let her know that she's locked up." Lieutenant Colonel Crawford chuckled. "She was mad enough when I told her I was going to assign someone to keep an eye on her while she's here."

Bolan's mouth quirked.

It might have been a smile. He saluted and started to turn when Crawford stopped him.

"Sergeant, you might tell her what the Viet civilians call you. Sergeant Mercy fits you just as well as the Executioner."

"She wouldn't understand," Bolan said simply.

He reached for the doorknob. It was jerked open before he could grasp it.

"Well, what is it, Corporal?" the colonel barked at the orderly who barreled into the room. "You'd better have a damned good reason for not knocking!"

"It's Miss Desmond, sir," the corporal said, shakily. "The reporter."

"I know who she is. What about her?"

Bolan had that foreboding in his gut again.

"She's taken a jeep, sir. No one expected her to try something like that. It was parked behind the motor pool. They worked on it today. Uh, gave it a tune-up and everything. C Company was supposed to pick it up first thing in the morning."

Crawford slammed his fist on the desk top.

"Damn. What do you mean she stole a jeep?"

The corporal cowered. "She was gone before anybody knew it. She headed west."

"West? Toward Three Click Fork?"

The corporal nodded again.

Bolan sighed as he thought of Three Click Fork, three kilometers from the camp where an old supply road branched north and south.

Where the heaviest concentration of VC activity in the area was reported to be building up.

That was the intel from all the recon patrols.

A bad place for an unarmed, just-off-the-plane reporter who also happened to be a woman.

A terrible place.

"Sergeant?"

Bolan glanced at the colonel and nodded.

"On my way, sir."

Bolan stalked out into the jungle night.

So Jill Desmond wanted to know what war was really all about.

The Executioner hoped she wouldn't find out. The hard way.

Soldiers.

They were all alike, Jill Desmond thought as she piloted the bucking jeep along the road leading away from Cam Lo base camp.

They were like juvenile college boys in a fraternity with their secret handshakes and rituals.

They didn't want to let anybody in on what really happened, least of all an uppity woman who had "no right" to be there.

Well, Lieutenant Colonel Crawford and his bloodthirsty Sergeant Bolan were wrong if they thought they could keep the truth from her.

She was young, yes, but she was also damn good at her job.

She was more than willing to wade through any kind of shit to get the story she was after.

The camp was one kilometer behind her.

The twin beams of the jeep's headlights cut through the curtain of night, revealing the deeply rutted road.

She jerked the wheel savagely and geared down as the vehicle bounced over the crater-pocked roadway. With each depression in the half-paved track the jeep threatened to head into the jungle.

This wasn't any worse than the road she had driven over in the hills of Kentucky when she interviewed the leader of that cult. He had been a little scary with those burning eyes, that long beard, the shotgun in gnarled hands.

Then there had been the Black Panther she had ventured into Watts to find. She had gone to places where a white woman had no business. She had asked the questions nobody asked, and she had survived.

She had flourished.

Guts.

That was all it took. If you had guts, you could go anywhere, do anything.

There were no sounds of war in the jungle night as she drove through its velvet blackness.

She would find the people who lived in this area. She would ask questions. The truth would be told.

The people back home were starting to wake up to what the truth about Vietnam really was. The human suffering. Napalm. The fat cats.

War was always good for business. Young men were dying in a rich man's war 10,000 miles away from home. Most of them had no idea why they were there, fighting a people who had done nothing to them. They weren't heroes, they were pawns in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first real rumbles of protest were beginning to be heard.

The truth would fuel those protests, and that knowledge made her job simple.

Find the truth.

Get it to the people.

Cam Lo was two clicks behind her.

Men like Mack Bolan had free rein to kill and maim and torture, and their superior officers hung medals on their chests for it.

Somebody had to put a stop to it before this backward little country was overrun with self-styled Executioners.

The glow of the headlights washed over Three Click Fork.

Jill Desmond stopped the jeep.

A frown marred the smoothness of her forehead.

She had pored over maps of the area before coming out here and had expected this fork, but she wasn't sure which way she should turn.

There were villages in both directions.

She tromped on the gas and spun the wheel to the right. The vehicle headed north down the narrow road.

As she drove, she tried to recall the smattering of Vietnamese she knew. Many of the villagers, especially the elders, knew English, she'd been told. She was sure she would be able to communicate with them.

The truth has a way of breaking down most barriers, including languages.

The harsh growl of the jeep's engine sounded loud in the night, drowning out the many little jungle noises that whizzed by along both sides of the open vehicle.

But the jeep sounds did not drown out the sudden burst of rattling gunfire from up ahead.

Instinctively, Jill hit the brakes.

The jeep skidded to a stop.

She sat very still, not realizing she was holding her breath.

The weapons fire continued.

She could distinguish the crackle of small-arms punctuating the heavier blasts.

She cut the jeep's headlights but left the engine running.

Her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She saw a flickering brightness up ahead, around what was evidently a bend in the road. The glow was red, licking the night sky as she watched.

Fire.

The village was being put to the torch!

She was too late!

Already American and Army of the Republic of Vietnam forces were moving into the village, razing it. Probably because the villagers had the audacity to resent the way their country, their lives, were being invaded by corrupt foreign governments. Maybe the civilians had provided food and shelter for the Vietcong.

This was it.

Her response was automatic.

She reached down on the seat beside her for the tape recorder and camera.

This atrocity would not go unrecorded, unpunished.

This one would see the light of day.

She unfastened the flap of a pack and took out her equipment. Then she took a deep breath and got ready to start down the road again. She would proceed on foot, even though that would be tricky.

Continuing in the jeep would present an easy target. She would be more likely to get shot.

The jungle pressed in close on both sides of the road.

Jill Desmond was about to step down from the jeep when a hand reached out, grabbing her arm.

She screamed into the night.

Jerking around, she saw a face looming at her out of the darkness: flat features, lank black hair, cloth tied around the forehead.

Vietcong.

Reflex took over.

Jill's foot left the brake, slammed the gas pedal. She popped the clutch.

The jeep shot forward.

She was thrown back against the seat.

The VC let go.

The left front wheel of the jeep dipped off the roadway. The lurch threw Jill heavily to the side.

She grabbed for the wheel, straightening herself and the jeep. Her foot was still on the gas. She left it there. Keeping her head down, she drove, her heart pounding wildly.

Somehow the jeep stayed on the road.

She heard firing from behind her.

From the sound of it, there were at least two or three others back there with the man who grabbed her, triggering shots after the fleeing vehicle.

A slug ricocheted off the body of the jeep with a whining spang.

Jill cringed, feeling the first tinge of fear.

She barely made out the bend in the road in time to whip the jeep around it, rather than crash into the culvert dead ahead. Once she negotiated the turn she brought the jeep to a halt.

Her jaw dropped at the scene of carnage spread out before her.

Unimaginable carnage, everywhere she looked.

The hooches of the village were grouped in a rough circle. Beyond them was the thick blackness of jungle night.

This had been a peaceful place once.

But no more.

All the huts were ablaze. Villagers ran around in frenzied shocked, scared confusion. Smoke and gunfire filled the air.

Jill saw an old man stumble out of one of the flaming huts. He was on fire.

Watching in numb horror, Jill saw a young woman race through the night with her baby clutched to her chest. The fire cast a red glow over her terrified face. The mother's face disappeared in a spray of blood. She had run into a bullet. The baby dropped shrieking from her arms, into a puddle of mud.

The villagers were being driven from their homes like stampeding cattle by the torches of soldiers. The civilians were being systematically slaughtered.

Then she saw the black pajamalike "uniforms." Not ARVN. Not soldiers, as Jill had thought.

Vietcong.

She saw at least two dozen VC firing into the village. Sometimes they shot to kill, sometimes only to disable. Then they would finish the job with the long knives they carried. The firelight glinted on the hacking, bloody blades.

A VC toting a machine gun raked fire across a fleeing knot of civilians, stitching them, shredding flesh, pulping bone. Bodies erupted gore.

Jill Desmond was sick.

Deep-down sick. Far past the vomiting stage.

A tiny moan escaped her throat.

It was stilled by the cold touch of metal that suddenly pressed against her temple.

"Do not move," a heavily accented voice growled close to her ear.

Jill did what the voice told her. She remained still except for the trembling that she could not control, spasming up from her gut.

The man holding the pistol moved around to her side. In the reflected glow of the village's destruction, she could see him.

The face was lean, skin pulled taut over high cheekbones. Dark eyes glittered with the light of madness. No. Not madness.

Savagery.

He wore a crude uniform and was evidently the leader of this group of VC who had surrounded the jeep. His eyes took in every detail of the news woman.

A razorlike smile slit his face.

"American," he said softly, the comment almost lost in the clamor of gunfire and screams from the village. "Very good."

The Cong leader stepped back and motioned curtly with a pistol. Two of his men stepped toward the jeep.

Jill shrank from them. Her mouth moved.

"No," she whispered. "Oh, God, no…"

They grabbed her arms, yanking her from the jeep.

She screamed in pain. Her cries were ignored.

Thirty seconds later, the jeep stood deserted in the road.

The VC vanished into the jungle with their captive.

Bolan ignored his weariness.

This was his first tour of duty in Vietnam, his first experience with war, but he had already learned to push himself beyond the natural limits of endurance. His life depended on it.

He was still in camou fatigues, but he had traded his sniper rifle for an M-16 equipped with noise-and-flash suppressor. A .45 automatic nestled in leather on his hip. Grenades were clipped onto the belt around his waist. A long double-edged knife was sheathed behind the .45.

He moved on foot along the road, traveling at a good clip. He was a moving shadow, nothing more. He knew that he could cover ground almost as fast as the jeep. He reckoned the disrepair would slow Jill Desmond's progress.

This way was quieter.

He heard the gunfire to the north. He stopped. He listened.

It could be a firefight between VC and American forces, but the young combat specialist doubted that. The VC had "liberated" lots of French and American weapons over the years.

Bolan launched into a jog again.

A few minutes later he reached Three Click Fork.

The firing to the north had died down.

Bolan hesitated only a fraction of a heartbeat, then headed in that direction.

Everything was quiet to the south. He eliminated that possibility.

Bolan had to follow his instincts.

They told him that Jill Desmond had turned north. That she was right in the middle of that trouble up ahead.

God help her.

Before he had gone very far, he spotted the glow of the fire through gaps in the trees, growing brighter as he advanced.

Running directly into hell.

He saw the deserted jeep.

Bolan went into the brush at the side of the road in a rolling dive, came up with the muzzle of the M-16 lined up on the vehicle. His finger rested on the trigger, ready to send death down that road at the first sign of danger.

After a long moment he let out his breath again.

There was no movement around the jeep.

Bolan came out of his crouch and hurried on to the vehicle.

He drew up beside the jeep…and stared past it at images out of a lunatic's nightmare.

Destruction was everywhere.

What had been a peaceful village hours ago, when Able Team had passed through on their way home, was a blood-drenched hellground. Corpses everywhere. Corpses of every age, both sexes.

Sporadic firing broke out. A few VC darted around the flaming ruins of the huts, finishing off the survivors of the massacre.

A mop-up party.

A larger force had done this and had left.

Jill Desmond wanted to learn the truth about the war.

There was no better place.

The Executioner got to work.

One of the villagers, a man whose legs had been shattered by bullets, lay on the ground, pleading for mercy from the black-clad VC who loomed over him. The VC's grinning face became a devilish mask in the glow of the firelight as he lifted his knife, ready to chop.

His head exploded in a shower of blood and gray matter. He pitched backward in a death sprawl.

Bolan tracked right, squeezing off another round.

Another of the bastards went spinning into oblivion as a slug punched open his head.

Two more VC went down before the others realized someone in the shadows was sniping at them. The ones still alive cast about frantically for some sign of the wraith-like, silent sniper.

Shouting in anger, one of the VC peppered the nearby jungle with rounds from his machine gun. He was kicked backward an instant later by a burst that splattered through his neck.

Another threw a grenade into the trees.

Bolan was on the move and out of range by the time it exploded. The Executioner dropped the grenade thrower with another short burst from the M-16. He slammed another clip into the assault rifle and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.

He stayed on the perimeter of the village, always on the move, pausing every few feet to deliver death to another of these vermin who preyed on their own countrymen.

He had to take one of them alive, so he could find out where the others had taken Jill Desmond.

He snapped off another shot. A running Cong flopped to the ground. Bolan scanned the area.

There had to be at least one more VC around here. There had to be.

Bolan moved out from the tree line.

In the darkness he heard the snap of a twig to his left.

He slipped to the side as automatic-weapon fire ripped through the space where he had just been.

The muzzle-flash came from near one of the burning huts.

Bolan put a round through the ambusher's chest and another through his thigh. The VC fell, weapon spinning away. He sprawled on the ground thrashing and screaming in pain.

He was still alive.

Bolan stepped forward.

The wounded VC fumbled for a grenade.

Bolan's booted foot lashed out and broke the man's wrist. The grenade bounced away harmlessly, pin intact.

Bolan pressed the muzzle of the M-16 against the guy's chest.

"I hope to hell you speak English."

The Cong's eyes were wide, filled with terror. But he did not respond.

Bolan switched to Vietnamese. His fair command of the language got his point across.

The guy twisted his head back and forth in response to Bolan's question. The fear grew stronger. So did the pain as shock wore off. Blood leaked from the corners of his mouth. His breathing was harsh, ragged.

Bolan asked once more where the others in the group had gone.

Again the man shook his head.

Bolan's eyes darted around the burned-out village, looking for any sign of Jill Desmond.

Nothing.

She was gone.

Taken.

A coldness grew inside Bolan, a white-hot coldness.

He thought about what would happen to the woman if she remained a VC captive for even a short time.

Then he shifted the M-16 and pressed the hot muzzle against the sweating forehead of the wounded creep.

For the last time, Bolan asked his question.

This time, the guy answered.

"Xan Lung!" he screamed out.

Bolan eased off the pressure of the M-16 threatening to blow the guy's skull to bits. He stood, trying to decide what to do with the man, when the VC made the decision for him.

The VC scrambled as fast as he could toward a fallen machine gun, dragging his shattered leg behind him. He got his hands on the weapon.

Then Bolan's burst from the M-16 ripped the VC apart.

The Executioner was alone in a village of death.

He drew a long breath and let it out slowly. Fatigue tried to claim his body and soul. But he refused to acknowledge it.

Time to get moving.

The nights were never totally quiet.

There were insects and other small creatures moving through the jungle. The sounds of nature went on.

The path Bolan followed was narrow and winding, the bushes around him so thick that only the smallest glimmer of moonlight penetrated.

He moved by instinct most of the time, hurrying along the trail at a soundless jog, the jungle fighter in his element.

He quickly circled the perimeter of the decimated village before leaving it behind, and his first thought was confirmed.

Jill was not among the dead.

The VC had her.

They could make use of a captured American, especially an attractive female journalist.

There would be more than the inevitable rape. They would debase her totally as a woman, as a human being.

Mack Bolan was not going to let the woman die.

He stepped up his pace.

With his rifle at the ready, his combat senses fine tuned to danger in the jungle around him, he hustled along.

The wounded VC back at the village had told him with two words where the others had gone.

Xan Lung.

A village one hour to the north that had already felt the purging touch of the VC. They had taken over the village, constructed a munitions dump there. They abandoned the settlement when the Americans learned of the VC presence and shelled the area.

The village was well off the main "highway."

Bolan headed in that direction, making his own path at first, then following the trail he came across. He was fairly sure that the VC had used the path earlier that night. An occasional vine that had been hacked away from the jungle trail told Bolan that the wounded man had not lied. The VC hadcome this way.

With Jill.

The path was muddy in places. The muck suctioned at his boots. The ever-present stench of decayed vegetation filled his nostrils, making the air thick.

The sound of voices came to his ears.

Bolan slowed.

The voices were low pitched. The source was ahead of him, just off the trail.

He melted into the bush on the same side of the path and stood absolutely still. His alert senses had saved him from walking directly into a security perimeter. He heard two voices, conversing in Vietnamese.

Okay.

If they were lookouts, they weren't very good ones. Deep in the jungle, though, he supposed it was easy for them to get overconfident.

He moved up on them so softly that not even the night creatures were disturbed.

Within moments he was a few feet from the enemy but neither of them had any idea of his presence.

One of the VC laughed at a comment from the other one.

Bolan knew he had to take out both of them almost at the same time to prevent any outcry.

He rushed forward between the two of them. Surprise registered on one of the men's faces, but not for long as Bolan rammed the M-16's butt sideways. There was a cracking sound as skull bone shattered. One VC, dead on his feet, stumbled back, blood spurting from his nose and mouth.

The other man only had time to emit a startled grunt. He started tracking his rifle upward, but the Executioner pivoted in a lightning-fast maneuver and swung the gun stock again. The second VC, his head caved in, dropped lifelessly to the ground alongside his comrade.

Bolan left them there.

A few steps and he was back on the trail.

Where there was one set of guards, there would be another.

Bolan advanced a few meters, then left the trail. The going would be slower, but he was willing to sacrifice a little speed.

Long minutes passed as the nightscorcher made his way through dense clinging undergrowth.

A whiff of cooking came to him, intermingled with the usual smells of this jungle world.

The VC camp at Xan Lung.

Suddenly a guttural voice challenged him.

Bolan dived forward, somersaulting and coming up in a crouch. He spotted the shadowy bulk of a sentry in the darkness and triggered off a round.

The silenced assault rifle chugged.

The figure in the shadows staggered, clutching at its middle, and fell.

Bolan moved to the man's side, knife unsheathed, poised.

The VC was dead, drilled through the heart.

Bolan drew a deep breath.

He moved forward on his belly, leaving the dead sentry behind him.

Another few minutes brought him to his goal.

Bolan huddled in the thick choking growth and peered out into a clearing that was illuminated by a small fire.

There were at least fifteen Vietcong in the camp.

Some of them were drinking, some were gathered around a cooking pot suspended over the fire.

Most of the huts that made up the village of Xan Lung had been destroyed, but a few were still scattered around the clearing.

Dominating the scene was a bombed-out concrete building — the abandoned munitions dump. Parts of it had been leveled by American shelling. Sections of the roof had collapsed, but the walls still stood for the most part.

Bolan's eyes flicked from figure to figure down there, checking out everyone.

There was no sign of Jill Desmond.

She was either inside one of the huts or inside the munitions dump.

Or she was dead.

A choked scream from the munitions building gave Bolan his answer.

There were too many of the enemy for a grandstand play to be successful.

Unless it was one hell of a grandstand play.

He circled the camp, encountering no more lookouts. They had to feel secure; this was their territory.

Bolan returned to his original position at the back of the munitions dump.

There were three sentries posted behind the building. They looked none too alert, though, and they were huddled fairly close together. That would help.

The sentries laughed and talked among themselves as they passed around a liquor bottle.

Bolan hoped the noise of their voices would be enough to cover up what happened next.

Bolan raised the M-16.

He squeezed the trigger.

He did not see the bullet zip through the eye of one guard. He was already tracking to the next, firing again.

The second man kicked into a loose death sprawl. He hit the ground a split second after the first.

The third sentry actually got his mouth open to yell as he tried to bring his weapon up into firing position.

Bolan sent a slug sizzling into that open mouth. Flesh and bone erupted out the back of the head.

The three kills had taken seconds.

Bolan waited until he was sure the guards' deaths had gone unnoticed. Then he moved out as silently as a flitting moth.

He slung the M-16 over his shoulder, stepped over the bodies and took a running leap at a low wall of the building.

He went up the wall easily, lithely.

When he reached the top, he lay flat.

No sounds came from the other side.

He had to chance it.

He swung himself down through the bomb-damaged roof into the building.

It was dark and still inside.

Nothing moved.

The fire outside cast a feeble glow down through the opening where the roof had once been.

As Bolan's eyes adjusted, he saw that the floor was littered with rubble from the collapsed roof. Moving carefully, he skirted the bigger chunks and made his way toward a heavy wooden door set in one wall.

The door was not fastened, just rested against the opening in the wall.

Bolan grabbed both edges of the door and shifted it sideways, creating a space just large enough to slip through.

Before him was a narrow corridor that was a little brighter than the room Bolan stepped from.

At the end of this hallway there was another door, which was ajar. The glow from a lantern filtered into the passageway. The floor of the hall was also covered with broken chunks of the roof.

Bolan padded along a pathway through the junk, taking great care not to set off a clatter, however slight.

As he had suspected, the hallway led to a main room at the front of the building. He stopped before he reached the door and flattened himself against the wall.

"You are a very stubborn woman," a man's heavily accented voice snarled.

"And you're a murderer of women and children."

Jill Desmond's voice was cold and flat and showed not a trace of the terror she must be feeling.

Bolan could not help but smile in the gloom.

Bullheaded she might be, but Jill Desmond, journalist, had guts.

"We can make things very unpleasant for you, Miss Desmond." The accented voice continued.

Has to be the VC leader, Bolan thought.

"If you will only cooperate with us, things will go much easier for you."

"Bullshit," live-wire Desmond shot back. "You'll do what you want anyway, no matter what I say. I won't give you the satisfaction of seeing me beg."

"That is regrettable." The VC sighed. "I must therefore summon assistance in this interrogation."

Jill was cold.

Tropical country or not, she was cold. Fear made her that way.

She didn't have to be told what cooperate meant.

If she gave in, she would be smuggled north to Hanoi and made to parrot their line of garbage.

And garbage was what it was.

She knew that now.

They called themselves freedom fighters and patriots. No way. They were murderers, rapists, cold-blooded ravagers of the weak and defenseless.

Who was there to stop them?

The VC grunted his frustration. He grabbed Jill's hair, lacing his dirty fingers through her chestnut strands, and pulled cruelly, bringing a gasp of pain from her lips.

Then he gave her head a rough shove and stepped toward the door to call the torturers. The real interrogators.

Jill sensed movement behind her. She twisted her head to see what awful thing was going to happen next.

A tall young American soldier with chips-of-ice eyes stalked into the room.

Recognition flared in Jill's brain.

Sergeant Bolan!

The rifle in Bolan's hands spit death.

The round from the M-16 caught the VC leader in the throat. The man's neck disintegrated as blood splattered all over the room. The dead man tumbled and sprawled into a corner.

Jill Desmond, her fatigues torn but not indecently, sat tied in a crude wooden chair.

One quick step put Bolan beside the chair where Jill sat. Her eyes were wide, stunned, shocked by the violence she had seen and experienced tonight. But she was coherent. Bolan unsheathed his knife and cut the cord that bound her.

"You okay?" Bolan asked in an urgent whisper.

She took a deep ragged breath, then nodded.

"How did you find..."

Bolan interrupted the question with a gesture. "No time. Let's get out of here."

He walked to the dead officer and bent down. He rolled the corpse over and stripped the uniform jacket from it.

"Here," he snapped, and threw the garment to her.

Jill flinched from the jacket. It was specked with blood in places. But common sense and survival instinct prevailed over her revulsion.

She slipped into the jacket, knowing she would have to wear something over the torn fatigue tops or the jungle growth would flay her flesh to ribbons.

Bolan grasped the VC corpse and hauled it away from the door, shoving it against a wall where it would not be seen unless someone came all the way into the room. Then he extinguished the kerosene lantern that sat on a table.

In the last instant of light before the lantern went out, he saw Jill watching him. She was damned attractive, even after everything she had been through tonight.

He grasped her arm in the darkness.

"Come on."

He guided her into the narrow corridor that led to the back of the building.

She stumbled several times over the rubble, but Bolan's firm grip kept her from falling.

They had to hurry.

Much as he might have liked to take it easier for Jill's sake, they could not afford that luxury.

They had to get out of Xan Lung before the VC leader's body was discovered.

A startled shout echoed down the hallway, then harsh yells.

The body had been discovered.

Within seconds the chase would be on.

Bolan jerked Jill Desmond into the room at the end of the corridor of the damaged munitions dump. He pushed her toward the back wall.

"I'll give you a boost," he told her. "Once you're over, head for the tree line."

"What about you?" There was a genuine concern in her voice.

"I'll catch up to you," Bolan grunted.

He stooped and grasped her around the hips. He hoisted her into position so she would grab the top of the wall.

She started to pull herself up and over to the outside. Bolan placed one hand behind on a nicely shaped rump and gave a purely strategic push.

Jill hauled herself to the top. A second later she disappeared over the wall.

Bolan was right behind her.

He paused at the top of the wall.

There were several sections of the old munitions depot roof that were intact, though drooping, especially near the edge of the roof.

Bolan moved out onto one of those sections for a better look at the uproar gripping the Xan Lung camp.

The VC were disorganized. But only for the moment. Already someone had thrown more wood on the fire so that it blazed and shed stronger illumination across the jungle surrounding the clearing.

Time for the play, grandstand and all.

Last chance, in fact.

The blitz artist tugged grenades off his belt, moving smooth and efficiently, pulling out the pins one by one. He tossed the bundles of death and hellfire into the VC camp.

One Cong saw things dropping from the sky and let out a startled yell.

The first grenade blew and ripped him apart, leaving a shallow hole in the clay and a mangled splotch where a heartbeat before a man had stood.

One after another the grenades exploded.

Some of the VC dived for cover, but many of them never had a chance. Shrapnel tore into them, shredding lives and limbs in a fireworks display of airborne body parts. The air was filled with high-pitched screams as men died.

It took just seconds for Bolan's five grenades to unleash their hellfire. At least half a dozen VC died as the Executioner canceled their tabs.

That left quite a few of them alive. Some of them spotted Bolan.

Bolan flicked the M-16 to full-auto as the cooking muzzle tracked an arc of death. Bolan cut down three more of the enemy in a figure eight of blistering lead. They never knew what hit them. The 5.56mm slugs ripped through flesh, splattering brains, pulverizing hearts. Vietcong did weird death dances in the flickering firelight, before sprawling immobile into the dark shadows.

Bullets whizzed all around Bolan, singing angry songs near him.

From his position atop the wall he cast a glance toward the tree line where waist-high elephant grass bordered the jungle.

Jill had already vanished into the night.

Even if he never left this clearing, Jill would have a chance, he thought.

And that was all you could ask for in the jungle.

The M-16's muzzle spit its last round, planting a death kiss on the forehead of a Cong who had peeled off some rounds at Bolan from half-assed cover.

Bolan slung the rifle over his shoulder and grabbed for his holstered .45. But his weight suddenly became too much for the section of roof on which he perched.

With a rumble, it caved in.

Bolan fell with it.

As he dropped, he twisted his body in an instinctive reflex. His back scraped the top of the wall, but he fell outside the building.

He hit the ground, rolling, and came up ready to dive toward the back corner of the bombed-out arms depot.

Too far away.

His body would be butchered by VC slugs before he could cross the clearing.

"Hit the dirt!" a female voice yelled at him from somewhere beyond the flickering blaze.

Bolan hit the dirt, his .45 and eyes panning the night for targets.

He saw Jill come around the corner of the old munitions building with one of the fallen sentries' AK-47s. She held the rifle awkwardly, but there was nothing clumsy about the chattering stream of hot lead that erupted from its muzzle.

Bolan stayed prone under the line of fire and let the slugs chew up the careless enemy. Several went into stumbling death slides, blood spurting.

Bolan triggered his .45, adding to the carnage.

Jill reached his side and crouched there.

Their combined firepower, the lady journalist with her confiscated AK and marksman Bolan with the .45, was withering.

The smattering of answering fire from the darkness stuttered into nothing.

The jungle line was only a few meters away.

Bolan seized the lull, leathered his side arm and grabbed the lady's wrist, guiding her along with him as he withdrew for the tree line.

They plunged into the dark jungle undergrowth needless of the branches and vines whipping at them like hungry things.

Jill let out a ragged breath from time to time, but Bolan urged her on. They could not afford to face more VC who might be in the vicinity.

Within moments, sounds of pursuit rustled in the distance behind them.

"Where did you learn to fire an assault rifle like that?" Bolan asked the woman.

"Back there," came the grim reply.

There was no trail through this part of the jungle, but they were heading in the general direction of the road from Three Click Fork.

Or so Bolan hoped.

His instincts proved right.

They stumbled out onto the rough surface of the road forty minutes later.

They would be better targets at the moment, if the VC managed to close in on them from behind, but they could move faster on the road.

The VC had not yet reached the road.

A shadow moved in front of them.

Bolan spun Jill away from him, splitting them up to make them harder targets. He brought up the reloaded M-16 and tracked the rifle on the moving spot.

His finger froze on the trigger a fraction of a second before sending a bullet into the night.

He heard the cry of a child.

A little boy, no more than four or five years old, stumbled into the road, tears running down his cheeks. His clothes were in tatters. There was blood on his face from a gash in his scalp.

He was alone.

Jill crouched on the other side of the road, her AK-47 up and ready. She saw the child, too, and moved back into the center of the road to join Bolan. He was already advancing toward the boy, more wary than ever of an enemy trap.

The child saw the two adults approaching and turned to run away.

Bolan caught the child's arm and stopped him.

Two still forms on the road nearby caught Bolan's attention. He took a closer look: the child's parents. Dead. Slaughtered.

"From that burned-out village, more than likely," Bolan grunted under his breath. "The VC caught them on their way out. This is no place for the little guy. Not tonight."

The soldier gathered the child up in his free arm and glanced at Jill.

She looked as if she needed to catch her breath, dangerous though the delay might be.

There was still no sign of Charlie.

Bolan let himself start to hope they might successfully escape.

"Take a minute," he told the woman. He looked at the boy and saw the terror on that young face. "It's okay, son. You'll be all right now." He patted the child.

The boy didn't understand the words, but Bolan's gestures reassured him. He stopped crying.

Jill watched the care and compassion with which Mack Bolan handled the Vietnamese youngster.

"Thank you," she said abruptly. "After everything I said to you earlier tonight, I don't know why you put your life on the line to save me."

"Orders," he said gruffly, grinning.

"I'm not so sure. I'm not sure about a lot of things I used to be very sure about."

"Like who the savages are?"

She grimaced.

"I think I was just introduced to them. What I saw… the atrocities they committed… that's what this war is all about, isn't it?"

"The families in that village were feeding us intel on VC movements," Bolan told her. "This war is about a lot of things, Jill. Some good, some bad, and all of it matters. I've learned a few things, too. I didn't figure anybody who felt like you do about this war could care enough to fight the way you just did. You are some lady, lady."

She met his eyes.

"I decided we were on the same side after all, soldier."

Bolan nodded.

Yeah, they were on the same side.

The side of humanity.

Bullets cracked past them.

The range was bad and so was the light, but the pursuing VC were peppering the night blindly from way back in the jungle as they closed in.

He and Jill jogged off beyond the tree line, away from approaching Vietcong.

At the sound of gunfire the child started squirming under Bolan's arm. He had seen home and family destroyed; innocent eyes witnessed what it was like when cannibals ran unchecked in the world.

A white-hot poker stabbed Bolan in the left leg.

He stumbled but did not go down. Not at first. Then the leg buckled, and he fell.

Bolan cradled the kid to prevent him from being hurt as he rolled over and got to one knee.

Jill stopped beside him, breathless from running.

He scanned the terrain behind them with combat-cold eyes, the M-16 ready. He handed the boy to Jill.

"Move!" he barked.

In the night their eyes met for a timeless moment. Then she ran off, clutching the little boy to her.

Bolan turned toward the direction of the pursuing VC.

Suddenly the jungle darkness blazed into brightness.

At first, Bolan did not see where it came from. There was no time to pinpoint the phosphorous flare that floated down from above.

He heard frantic scrambling noises close by. Squinting against the glare, he sent a long stream of hot lead into the wall of green made silver by the eerie glow of the flare.

Some of the scrambling and rustling sounds stopped. Some.

When the rifle's magazine ran dry, he barely paused in his firing to feed the M-16 a new clip so the mighty weapon could continue hammering, bucking in his steady grip.

It was then he realized the pounding wasn't in his veins but the rotor throb of an approaching chopper.

A big Huey gunship sailed into view overhead, its mounted machine guns raining death on the remaining VC.

Bolan got to his feet as the chopper settled down on the road. The heat of battle had made him forget the pain of his leg wound. Now it hurt like hell. His left leg was stiff from the gouge an enemy bullet had put there.

He looked around. Jill Desmond had stopped down the road a few hundred feet. He could make her out in the Huey's flight lights. She looked stunned.

Even the child was wide-eyed and quiet.

Blancanales called from the open door of the Huey.

"Move it, Sarge! We've got to get out of here before Charlie calls reinforcements."

The flare sputtered and died in the sky.

Jill Desmond ran over to Mack Bolan by the chopper.

Bolan took the kid from her and passed him up to Zitka's outstretched arms. He saw other members of Sniper Team Able inside the Huey.

"Must've read my mind," he said to them as he helped Jill into the gunship.

"You mean Colonel Crawford read your mind," Blancanales called above the rumble of the chopper's engine directly overhead. "The CO hit the ceiling when he found out you'd gone off on your own. Your butt is up for a chewing."

Bolan grinned as he climbed aboard.

"We'll see. Won't be the first time."

Gunsmoke was at the controls. "Still playing at Sergeant Mercy, huh, soldier?" he called over in his Old West twang. "God bless you, guy."

Jill Desmond looked sharply at Bolan.

"Sergeant Mercy?"

"Sure," Blancanales said when Bolan made no reply. "That's what all the Viet civilians call him. Didn't you know?"

"There's a lot of things I didn't know, soldier," the woman admitted, "until tonight."

The chopper's engine revved.

Bolan's hand found Jill's and squeezed. She returned the pressure. Feminine, yeah. Divinely so. But hard, too. The right stuff.

Bolan would be coming back.

Back to the job he did so well.

Back to the hellgrounds.

Sergeant Mercy.

The Executioner.

One man.

For now, though, that one man had earned a rest, however brief.

The chopper lifted off and banked up into the first light of a new day.

The future would take care of itself.

With a helping hand from Mack Bolan, as long as this soldier lived to fight the good fight.

Wherever it might take him.