Blood Testament

Two men take the same pledge — to see justice done. Mack Bolan, a self-styled executioner, made his vow in silence and alone. Hal Brognola took his oath for all America to see. Hunter and prey in former years, they are now lifelong friends. Their friendship is their strenght — and their weakness.

The mission: Mack Bolan must rescue Brognola's kidnapped wife and children, and clear his friend's name of treachery.

The enemy that Bolan must face is ruthless and neck deep in the blood of a late U.S. president and his brother. The frame and snatch smell of CIA involvement, and Bolan knows that underworld links with Clandestine Ops run deep at Langley. With these odds, can Bolan stop his friend's world from falling apart?

The public park was deserted at this hour, and still the tall man's eyes kept roving, following the occasional passing car intently until it disappeared from sight. Uncertain that he and his companion couldn't be seen where they stood in the shadow of a huge oak, his gaze continued to probe the darkened areas of the park for possible signs of unwanted human presence.

Although his vigilance was a trait born of years of conditioning, he berated himself for this sudden case of nerves. After all, it was he who had chosen the site for the midnight rendezvous.

The tall man's nervousness did not seem to faze the stocky figure standing before him. Nick, his companion had asked to be called during the phone conversation. The tall man wondered briefly if Nick was enjoying his discomfiture, and that, coupled with the apparent lack of concern over what they were about to do, made the tall man angry.

"It's set," Nick said, the first to speak.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course, I'm sure."

The cockiness in Nick's voice grated on the tall man's overwrought nerves and it would have pleased him to reach out and lock his fingers around that greasy throat, cut off the bastard's breath, but he couldn't afford to do that. Yet.

"You better get it right."

"Hey! Cam, wasn't it? Don't threaten me, see? Or you can fucking well do the job yourself."

Anger intensified inside the tall man until he stifled it with sheer force of will. "Okay, okay, don't get uptight, Nick."

"That's better. We'll handle our end just fine. Trust me."

Trust me, Cam mimicked in his mind. "I really shouldn't be involved in this at all."

"You've been involved from the beginning, hotshot, and don't forget it." The other's voice was insolent, before it turned to stone. "We godown, you're coming with us, you and all your buddies.''

Angry silence hung between them for a moment, stretching paper-thin before Nick's voice sliced through it, softer now, and filled with counterfeit concern. "You're worried someone's going to make you on this thing, huh?"

"It's possible."

"What kind of ship you running over there, Cam? I thought you guys keep it strictly need-to-know.''

"There's no such thing as absolute security."

"You better hope there is. One slip on this, we all go up in smoke."

Cam had been acutely conscious of the risks from the beginning, which was not to say that he had been presented with a choice. It was a question of survival, plain and simple, with the choices narrowed down to do or die. He had been forced to take a stand, and once committed, there could be no turning back.

"I'm holding up my end."

"I know you are. We're counting on you, Cam." The phony confidence and camaraderie were sickening. "How are you handling the disposal?"

His companion tried for a smile, and in the gloom it resembled a grimace that reminded him of hungry crocodiles.

"We've got our ways. They worked before."

"You've never bagged this kind of game before."

The tall man felt the old familiar tightness in his stomach, acid fingers worming upward through his chest to lock around his heart. The ulcers had been gnawing at him for a month, but he would have to live with it until the job had been carried through to its conclusion, one way or the other. He stopped himself. It had to be only one way if he intended to survive the coming storm. They would succeed, or they would die. The world would not be large enough to hide them if they failed.

"Let me worry about that," Nick said. Then, in a twinkling, the voice was dripping ice. "But you better not be fucking me."

"You're not my type."

"I'll tell you what type I am, in case your memory's been fogging over lately. Let's say that someone was to try and jerk me on a deal that I've been working on for better than a year. Let's say someone didn't hold his end up in a crunch."

"Let's say."

"I can't imagine anywhere on earth this bastard would be safe,
capisce?
It's like little Bobby used to say: I don't get mad, I just get even. You remember Bobby, don't you, Cam?"

The tall man nodded. He remembered Bobby, sure. And Jack, as well. The years had been unable to erase their memory.

"Good. I wouldn't want you coming up with any second thoughts along the way."

"No second thoughts," he echoed, feeling like a straw man with his guts on fire.

"So, I'll be hearing from you, then?"

"This weekend."

"Beautiful. I'm looking forward to it, Cam. It's been a long time coming."

Like a lifetime, the tall man thought, shuddering involuntarily, and glad for the darkness. He only hoped that there would be a lifetime
after,
that he would be able to find a place among the living. The alternative was nonexistence, and he wasn't up for that. Not yet. He had too much to lose.

And he was risking all of it.

The tall man took in the surroundings once more, amazed at the serenity of the manicured suburbs. A storm was brewing while West Virginia slept, and when it broke he would be in its eye.

"Enjoy your weekend."

Hal Brognola glanced up from his open briefcase and returned his secretary's smile. "Still here?"

"I'm playing catch-up with the files."

"Forget it. You can get it done on Monday." Putting on a phony scowl, he told her gruffly, "Anyway, we can't afford the overtime."

"You talked me into it. Good night."

He spun the combination lock on his valise and double-checked his watch against the ugly, standard-issue wall clock opposite his desk. It was approaching six o'clock, and he was running late. As usual.

Without a backward glance he put the place behind him, fighting an urge to click his heels. The three-day weekend beckoned irresistibly, but Hal had more than simple rest and relaxation on his mind. The kids and Helen would be on the road by now, perhaps already at their destination, waiting for him. Anxious to be with them, he signed out, leaving the number where he could be reached in case of an emergency.

It had been too damned long since he and his family had any time together, free from work, school and the countless other things that separate a man, unwillingly, from those he loves. Despite the fact that he had been with Helen almost every day and night for twenty-seven years, he never saw enough of her. As for the kids...

Brognola stopped himself and grinned unconsciously. The "kids" were both in college now, adults with lives and secrets of their own. The man from Justice was intensely proud of them, secure in their maturity and sense of purpose, but experience had taught him that the world was dangerous, full of predators relentlessly in search of prey. Their mother worried openly — it was a woman's inalienable right — but gender and his temperament prevented Hal from expressing his concerns aloud. He had no doubt that Helen was aware of his private fears — she could see through him, always had — but she was generous enough to keep the knowledge locked away. When Jeff went out for football, when Eileen wrote home about the great new guy that she was dating, Helen clucked and frowned and voiced her hope that they would each proceed with caution. Hal, for his part, grumbled that the kids were old enough to take care of themselves and hid his concern behind the pages of the
Post
or
New York Times
— hid his concern from everyone except Helen, who missed nothing.

Christmas break and spring vacation were the only times they came together now with any regularity. The crush of classes, part-time jobs and social obligations monopolized their time, as work had eaten up so many hours of Brognola's life while they were growing up. Instead of looking back on other seasons with regret, Brognola cherished every infrequent moment that they had together these days.

The three-day weekend was their private time before Jeff caught the southbound flight for Lauderdale, before Eileen and friends departed for a week in Provincetown. Brognola had avoided asking any questions, loath to pry, and equally afraid, perhaps, of what their honest answers might reveal. The big Fed hadn't spent his youth in a monastery, and he understood the modern trend toward free-and-easy sexuality, but it wouldn't do to know too much about his children's private lives. A man with few illusions left, he clung to the mirage of their eternal innocence. He chuckled to himself, imagining that when Eileen was thirty-five with children of her own, he would be cherishing the myth of virgin birth.

The parking lot was nearly empty, bureaucrats decamping early on a Friday afternoon, deserting desks and filing cabinets for the beach, the mountains, anywhere away from claustrophobic cubicles and jangling telephones. Brognola aimed his Buick toward the exit, spent another moment checking out with gate security then merged with weekend traffic, outbound, leaving Wonderland on the Potomac behind. He traveled west on Constitution Avenue, across the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge into Arlington, on past the endless graves of heroes, catching Highway 211 west toward Rappahannock County and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

They had owned the cabin for a dozen years, and had increasingly relied upon it as a refuge from the grind in Washington as Hal gradually moved up the ladder toward the pinnacle of Justice and a supervisory position with the Phoenix project. He could never really leave the job behind, but in the mountains, with the smell of evergreens supplanting the monoxide haze of civilization, Hal recaptured something of the gentler times. He was on call, of course, no more than ninety minutes from the office, but it seemed a world away.

And Helen made the difference. Helen and the kids.

Another forty minutes south along the Appalachian Trail, the hard core of his Phoenix team was standing ever-ready for another confrontation with the faceless enemy. Extensive renovations had been undertaken since the near-disaster that had claimed the life of April Rose, erstwhile mission controller and overseer of Stony Man Farm. These days the Farm, the U.S. government's ultrasecret command center — originally set up to support the Phoenix Project, and headed up by Colonel John Phoenix, as Mack Bolan was then known — was fully operational again, secure against intruders from without... and enemies within.

Brognola thought that this time he would make the drive to Rappahannock County on his own, without the company of ghosts and bitter memories. But there was no escape. Inevitably, as he drove, his mind was drawn to thoughts of April, memories of Aaron Kurtzman, Stony Man Farm's computer wizard who was crippled in the attack on the Farm, and Andrjez Konzaki, weaponsmith extraordinaire, who was mortally wounded in the same assault.

Memories of Mack Bolan.

But the weekend was his own to spend with loved ones far behind the battle lines. He found a music station on the radio and turned it up to blot out the distant memories.

His suitcase would be waiting for him at the cabin. Helen saw to that, along with all the other details of planning a weekend in the mountains that could drive a man to drink. She seemed to thrive on preparing for their rare reunions, lingering on points of trivia that Hal could never seem to keep in mind. He never ceased to marvel at her energy and her efficiency.

For no apparent reason a bleak thought crossed his mind and Hal wondered if he could get along without her...

No.

It would be simpler by far to get along without his legs, his hands, his eyes.

Without his heart.

Two hours out of D.C., he stopped for gas in Cresthill, searching out the tiny local liquor store and startling the owner with his order for a magnum of champagne. The locals were inclined to beer and Cutty Sark, but once the man recovered, he allowed that there should be a bottle somewhere out back. There was, and Hal was beaming as he pushed a pair of twenties toward the register, retreating with his prize before the owner had a chance to calculate his change. It was already dark, and he was in a hurry now.

Another two-and-a-half miles, and he took the cutoff on an unpaved washboard road that wound between the looming trunks of conifers, ascending toward a tiny clutch of cabins overlooking Cresthill and the northern Blue Ridge slopes. The cabins, five in all, were spaced around a sort of cul-de-sac, but trees and natural topography preserved a sense of isolation. Rarely were the cabins simultaneously occupied, and even with a group or families in residence, they might pass days without encountering a neighbor.

Brognola dropped the Buick into low and made the final fifty yards, past cabins standing empty, dark against the trees. His headlights probed around a curve and picked out Helen's station wagon, parked in the carport of the four-room structure. Hal nosed in behind the other vehicle, already marking lights that glowed through the curtained windows. He shut down the Buick's engine and climbed out with his bottle of champagne and his briefcase.

They must have heard him coming, but they would be busy preparing dinner now, perhaps already grilling the steaks that Helen had gone shopping for on Wednesday. Stiff from the drive and looking forward to a drink, Brognola clomped across the wooden porch and gave the knob a twist.

The door was locked.

He frowned, remembering that Helen would require some time to dust away the city's grime and finally relax. When visiting, they rarely locked the cabin door until they went to bed... and then secured it primarily against the possibility of roving bears or overcurious raccoons, instead of human enemies. The urban jungle was behind them for the moment. They were safe.

He found the key among his others, smiling as he anticipated the surprise on Helen's face, Jeff's handshake, Eileen's rush into his arms. Anticipation made him fumble twice before he found the keyhole, but he was already working on his entry line.

"It's pretty sorry when a man's own family locks him out."

The empty living room-kitchen greeted him with ringing silence. Startled by the absence of activity, Brognola raised his voice.

"Hello?"

No answer from the bedrooms, and a little chill of apprehension raised the short hairs at the back of his neck.

Relax, he told himself. They must be here. The car's parked right outside.

He left the champagne and briefcase on the kitchen counter, calling out once more, his voice subdued as he proceeded through the rooms. In Jeff's room a duffel bag rested on the bed. Two matching bags, emblazoned with decals Eileen had picked up on a summer tour of Europe two years earlier, sat on the floor of his daughter's room. In the final bedroom, he recognized one suitcase as his own, the other as his wife's. She had already stowed some clothing in the closet; it was standing open, and he scanned the line of blouses, slacks, the jacket she habitually brought along in case the nights turned cold. Outside, then.

There was a shed out back, for tools and whatnot. It was likely they had gone outside for something, and had hidden as a joke when he drove up. It might be possible to turn the joke around and take them by surprise if he was quick enough in doubling back. But they were not outside.

With the lighted cabin at his back, he stood in darkness and called their names. The night was cool, but the external temperature had little impact on Brognola. A deeper chill had crept into his bones, his vitals.

He took a breath and held it, swallowing the surge of panic, willing rationality to take control and suppress the primal terror he felt inside. There were alternatives, distinct and separate from any danger situation. All he had to do was keep his wits about him, think it through, until he solved the mystery. No. There wasno mystery.

His family was
out,
but he could not infer from that alone that they were
missing.
Worlds of difference separated one fact from the other, worlds of hurt that made the difference between a pleasant evening and an endless night of madness.

Neighbors. That had to be it.

He had seen no lights in either of the cabins that he passed, but that left two more at the far side of the cul-de-sac, invisible from where he stood. It was entirely possible that Helen and the kids had tired of waiting for him, or had simply sought to stretch their legs by visiting their neighbors down the road. Maybe they had simply gone out walking, but the darkness and the chill reminded him that they would certainly have turned toward home by now.

It would be neighbors, or it would be nothing, and he doubled back to close the cabin door before he set off down the unpaved drive on foot. He might have driven, covering the distance in a shorter time, but he was anxious for the Buick to be waiting when his family returned. It would alert them to his presence, let them know that he was waiting, looking for them.

Brognola reached the nearest cabin in a brisk ten-minute hike. At first he almost missed it, darkened as it was, deserted in the shadow of the forest. Aware that he was wasting time, but loath to overlook the smallest chance of gaining information on his family's whereabouts, he crossed the porch and hammered on the door. He was rewarded with only the echo of his pounding through the empty rooms inside.

Three down, and one remaining. Fifteen minutes farther on, Brognola felt hope swelling in his chest as he beheld the lighted windows of the final cabin. Parked outside, a Blazer four-by-four with gun racks in the window advertised the presence of a hunter. Hal had met the cabin owner several seasons before, but he could not recall the face or name. Already certain that his family was not there, he felt compelled to ask in any case.

The face that finally responded to his knock was not familiar in the least. The cabin had undoubtedly changed hands, but still he forged ahead, inquiring if the long-haired youth in residence had seen his family, anyone at all? And at the risk of being rude, precisely when had he arrived?

The young man recognized Brognola's tension, and helped as best he could. He had arrived that evening, about the time when Hal was pushing west on Constitution Avenue, and he had marked a station wagon at the second cabin down. Since his arrival there had been no sign of hikers, male or female, on the trail outside... but, then again, he wasn't really watching for them, either.

Feeling drained, Brognola thanked him for his help and trudged back through the darkness toward the cabin, praying silently that Helen and the kids would be there when he stepped across the threshold. They would not be there, of course; he knew that now with desperate certainty. They were not visiting the neighbors, and they had not opted for a hike through darkness.

They were simply gone.

In the yard Hal Brognola stopped to look at the cabin once more, as if his stare could will some message, a clue, of his family's whereabouts. He discerned on an outside wall of the lodge a sailboat, now disused, that he had fashioned out of driftwood for his son in earlier years. Hal's mind raced to the rooms inside, silent witnesses to adolescent dreams of sparkling water and buccaneers; rooms that kept secret tender endearments and the sounds of frenetic lovemaking on soft summer nights.

But what his eyes perceived instead made him take an involuntary step backward. The orange glow from lighted windows seemed to him a feral glare, the cabin's grim facade now mocking, taunting, slavering for blood. This refuge from the concrete jungle, Hal thought, this haven of love and happy times had betrayed him, surrendered his family to unspeakable and insidious evil.