Death Run

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Darwin Holmstrom for his contribution to this work.

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.

Darrick Anderson rode onto the track for the first practice session of the MotoGP season, rolled on the throttle and felt the 800cc four-stroke V-four engine spin the cold rear tire like soft butter on hot bread. The adrenaline rush he always felt when he headed out on the track fueled his body for the grueling session ahead, heightening his senses and slowing his perception of time's passing. He leaned the bike into Turn One at a leisurely 110 miles per hour and shifted his body to the opposite side of the bike in preparation for the next corner.

The bike felt good, and he was grateful to have a position, even if it was on the Free Flow Racing team. Free Flow was a newcomer to motorcycle racing's premiere class. Like any new race team running machinery of its own design, it campaigned undeveloped and uncompetitive motorcycles. Anderson knew he'd be duking it out with the back markers instead of battling for victory at the front of the pack.

Beggars can't be choosers, he thought. It had only been five years since he'd had the number "one" painted on the fairing of his motorcycle. Throughout his career Anderson had battled not just the world's top motorcycle racers, but also his own addictions to alcohol and drugs. He'd usually won the on-track battles, and had three world championships to prove it, but he'd lost the battle to his addictions. His race performance became inconsistent, and at the age of twenty-five he found himself unable to find a place on a racing team in his native United States. Now Anderson had a second chance to prove himself, and he wanted to make the most of it.

No one expected Anderson to return to MotoGP racing — no one expected him to live long enough — but he'd cleaned up. He hadn't taken a drink or snorted a line of cocaine in almost two years. He'd gotten back in shape and regained his riding abilities. When he landed the Free Flow ride, his skills were at their peak, even if his bike was underpowered and its chassis underdeveloped.

As he brought his bike up to speed and warmed up his tires, none of this mattered; he was just happy to be out on the track, tearing it up with his brother Eddie under the hot desert sun.

Eddie Anderson rose through the ranks of motorcycle racing in the United States to become the youngest person ever to win a national Superbike championship. His performance earned the young phenomenon a spot on the Ducati Marlboro MotoGP team. After winning rookie of the year in his first season, Eddie had a good chance of taking the championship this season.

Darrick circled the track, knocking a few tenths of a second off his lap times with each revolution of the fast circuit. The machine beneath him felt good, better than he'd expected. He skimmed his knees on the apron as he apexed the last corner on the track, straightened the bike and exited hard onto the front straight. He nearly jumped off his saddle when he felt a hand slap his ass. Darrick looked out of the left side of his helmet and saw Eddie passing him. Darrick could keep up with Eddie in the corners, but Eddie's powerful bike ran away from Darrick's as they rode down the long front straight. Eddie gained several bike lengths on Darrick before he threw his bike into Turn One.

There was a time when being passed would have thrown Darrick into spasms of rage, but seeing Eddie ride, watching him display his amazing skill and grace, made Darrick smile. He looked forward to his brother taking the number-one plate. Darrick pushed his bike to its very limits and beyond, not because he wanted to beat Eddie, but because he wanted to keep his brother in sight and watch him ride.

Darrick did a good job keeping up with his hard-charging brother, but the harder he pushed, the worse his bike behaved. The front end started to chatter under braking and continued to get worse until the bike was nearly in a tank slapper, forcing him into the paddock to have his technicians sort out the suspension. He pulled into the Free Flow pit, handed his bike to one of the technicians, peeled the top of his one-piece leathers to his waist, and went into the garage to find his team manager and explain the suspension problem. It would probably take only minor adjustments to dial out the front-end chatter and he wanted to get back out on the track before the two-hour practice session ended. He knew there was little point in trying to communicate the problem to the non-English-speaking technician.

It was early Friday morning and the paddock was quiet. The other racers were just starting to trickle out on the track, and a few teams hadn't even completely set up in their garages yet. Within the hour the sleepy paddock would transform into a buzzing industrial worksite. It would remain so until long after the traffic jam that would inevitably followed Sunday's race dissipated.

Darrick walked through the garage toward the office to find Jameed Botros, his team manager. He hated to complain because he didn't want anyone to think he'd fallen back into his prima donna ways, but Botros always set him on edge. There was something wrong with the man, and with the entire Free Flow team itself.

Free Flow, a Malaysian motorcycle company that specialized in building scooters and small motorcycles for Third World markets, had begun developing larger motorcycles for the lucrative U.S. and European markets. Free Flow's MotoGP race team was part of an effort to build brand recognition in those markets. Though the team was headquartered in Malaysia, most of the technicians and mechanics were Saudis, and none of them spoke English except Botros. Given that the Free Flow team's primary sponsor was a Saudi oil company, it made sense that the team was composed exclusively of Saudis.

It didn't bother Darrick that they were Saudis; what bothered him was that they were hard men who seemed out of place in the MotoGP world. They didn't seem to like motorcycles or motorcycle racing all that much. They didn't seem to like much else, either, especially Darrick. He'd never worked with such grim, humorless men.

Darrick walked into the office to find Botros speaking with a uniformed member of the Qatar security force. Because of the background noise from the activity in the garage, Botros and the security officer didn't notice Darrick enter the room. Botros continued to speak to the man in Arabic. Darrick had picked up enough of the language to recognize the words
package
and
shipment
He also made out the English names
San Francisco
and
Mazda Raceway
in the snippet of conversation he overheard. The fact that Botros was discussing the following week's race at the Mazda Raceway near Monterey, California, with a member of the Qatar security force struck Darrick as odd, and his face betrayed his concern.

Darrick said,
"Samehni"
Arabic for "pardon me," one of the phrases he'd picked up. Botros glared at him and said nothing. Darrick switched to English and explained the front-end chatter to Botros, who promised to have a technician make the changes Darrick suggested.

Darrick retired to his motor home to freshen up while the bike was being prepared. When he returned to the garage for the last part of the morning practice session, a particularly humorless technician, a Saudi Darrick hadn't met before, had his bike running and ready to go out on track. With his heavily scarred face, the man looked more like an escapee from a harsh prison than a trained motorcycle mechanic. "Your motorcycle is ready, sir," the man said.

Astonished to hear the brutish man speak English, Darrick thanked him, then donned his helmet and gloves and rode out of the garage. He got out on track just as Eddie flew by at full throttle. Darrick knew he should let his tires warm up a bit, but he couldn't resist the urge to chase his brother. He accelerated hard down the front straight, sat up to get into position for the first turn, and grabbed a handful of brake. Instead of pushing the brake pads into the discs, the brake lever went soft and pulled all the way back to the clip-on handlebar. A mist of brake fluid shot up inside his helmet, numbing his lips and stinging his eyes. His brake line had come loose from the reservoir on the handlebar. Riding nearly two hundred miles per hour into Turn One, he had no brakes.

Darrick leaned the bike into the turn and the front wheel lost traction, throwing the motorcycle to the pavement, shattering Darrick's collarbone. He skidded off the track alongside the motorcycle and hit the gravel at the outside apex of the turn. In most crashes his protective gear would save him from serious injury, but no gear on Earth would help him if he hit the wall at that speed.

He tried to slow himself, but when he saw the clip-on handlebar of the motorcycle dig into the gravel and launch the machine skyward, he knew it no longer mattered. The bike flew twenty feet in the air and Darrick watched as it started to come down at him. He tried to roll onto his side even though he knew it would make him go airborne and flop around like a rag doll in a tornado. As he expected, his broken shoulder caught in the gravel and flipped him over, launching him feet first into the air. Before he could make an entire revolution, which would have jammed his head into the gravel and snapped his neck, the motorcycle came down across his chest. Man and machine hit the wall as one, crushing the life from Darrick's body. His last thought before impact was that he was never going to see his brother win the MotoGP championship.

Mack Bolan crouched behind the cargo container in the Doha Industrial Area, watching the Qatar security force officer walk past on his rounds. Bolan had timed the man's route and knew he had just short of thirty minutes to examine the shipping containers that had been transferred from the Pakistani container ship
Hammam.

The previous night the soldier had slipped aboard the ship while it was anchored in the Doha Port and located the containers identified as his targets. He hadn't had time to examine the containers, which were covered in blue tarps. However, he managed to place an electronic tracking device under one of the tarps before he had to clear off the ship.

That morning, he'd followed the trucks hauling the ship's cargo to the warehouse. He'd located the cargo containers with a hand-held tracking unit disguised as a cellular phone and followed the signal to the corner of the warehouse. The crates were still covered with blue tarps.