Blood Testament by Don Pendleton Page A

Washington, the scene of other conflicts in his neverending war, and they would keep him here until his job was finished — or until somebody dropped him with a well-placed bullet.
    It could go either way, right now or in the coming hours. Bolan knew the odds, and he had been prepared for death since his arrival in the Southeast Asian hellgrounds. Nothing that had happened since had shaken his resolve to see his duty through.
    But there were other duties, too. Responsibilities to friends, and to the country that had nurtured him. His parents had deserted other homelands for the shining promise of America, had borne their children here, and they had seen their dreams turn into dust, the promise nullified by savages who lived outside the law. Mack Bolan had a duty to that dream, to generations yet unborn, and he would serve their cause with every fiber of his being.
    His meeting with the President was an unwelcome interruption of the soldier's newest life-and-death campaign. Each moment counted now, for Hal Brognola's family. But Hal had called the play and seemed intent on going through with his end of the bargain. Bolan would accommodate his friend to a point, but the Executioner did not believe that anything would come of his discussion with the chief of state. They understood each other well enough, and neither of them would be able to back down, reject his own responsibilities in favor of a compromise.
    The President was not Mack Bolan's enemy, per se. He had responded to the Stony Man debacle with restraint, compassion and a willingness to see the Phoenix Program forge ahead once the battle smoke had cleared. It had not been the President's idea for Bolan to sever all — or almost all — official ties. The Executioner had simply realized that he could not wage war effectively beneath the government umbrella, bound to systems and superiors that made his lightning war a clumsy juggernaut.
    Early in his war against the Mafia, the media had spoken of Mack Bolan as a "one-man army." There were implications that he thrived on loneliness, existed for the thrill of battle and sustained himself, like Dracula, on the blood of fallen enemies. The truth was rather different, but in one respect, the media reports were accurate. He fought a one-man war — when and where he could — and there had been no room for armies of supporting personnel in Bolan's scheme of things. The vision of an army at his back had been intoxicating, coming off his long last mile against the Mafia and reeling from a week of constant contact with the enemy, and he could not deny the victories that had been captured by the Phoenix Project. Neither could he venture to deny the costs. From the initiation of his private war, the soldier's greatest fear had been the sacrifice of allies who enlisted in his fight. The bloody roster haunted Bolan's dreams. So many lives cut short in pursuit of one man's own quixotic quest. How many times had Bolan sworn off the enlistment of another ally in his war? How many times had brutal circumstances forced him to recant that pledge? The list of dead and wounded, from his first campaign in California to the Stony Man disaster, was as long as Bolan's strong right arm. There had been others since his exit from the program, might be more before the day was out, but now the soldier had some measure of control regarding those who joined his war.
    The men of Phoenix Force and Able Team, secure and satisfied beneath the wing of Phoenix, had elected to remain and fight their battles from within the system. Bolan could respect their stand, remembering that it had been his own not long ago, but there were always choices to be made. And for Mack Bolan, the decision had been simple, inescapable, inevitable. He was meant to wage his war on private terms, according to the rules established by his enemies.
    The Secret Service agents met him fifty yards inside the park. There were three of them, all Robert Redford lookalikes in charcoal