"Дон Пендлтон. Continental Contract ("Палач" #5) " - читать интересную книгу автора

Don Pendleton


Continental Contract

The Executioner - 05


"Don Pendleton. Continental Contract": Pinnacle Books; 1971

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The largest private gun squad in history follows Bolan to France, only
to find the war has started without them, and 20 dead Frenchmen are mute
testimony to the profinciency of the Executioner...

Don Pendleton
Continental Contract

Prologue

Mack Bolan's war with the Mafia was only a few months old, and already
the man had become a legend and a modern day folk hero. Law enforcement
agencies at every level of government and throughout the land had taken to
keeping a special file on the exploits of the man known as The Executioner,
and various foreign capitals would soon be added to the alert network of
international police organizations. Others, also, sought the lifeblood of
Mack Bolan. It was common knowledge that a $100,000 death contract had been
issued against Bolan by the ruling council of bosses of that vast "invisible
second government" known as the Mafia, or La Cosa Nostra. This was an "open
contract," with bounty hunters of every walk and stripe invited and
encouraged to participate in the hunt. It was also being rumored that
various individual family bosses had added attractive bonuses to the final
payoff in the event that the murder contract was closed in their territory;
it has been estimated that in several areas of the country, Bolan's head
would be worth a quarter of a million dollars to his killer.
What sort of superman could inspire such nationwide awe, fear, and
respect from both sides of a modern society? Bolan himself would be the last
man to attempt to answer that question. He knew that he was no superman.
Like any other man, he bled when wounded, trembled when frightened, felt
loneliness in isolation, and regarded life as preferable to death.
Short months earlier, this "superman" had been on combat duty in
Vietnam, in his own eyes just another non-com fighting another version of
the impossible war. But in that war had been comrades, a sense of national
purpose, and the brawn and brains of the United States government backing
him. Now he was alone, often doubting his own moral imperatives, and with
only his own abilities and instincts to stand against what often seemed to
be the entire world.
When Bolan killed enemies in Vietnam, he was decorated for heroism and
applauded by the bulk of his society. When he killed the enemy at home, he