Stony Man - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Stony Man is a fictional clandestine anti-terrorist organization featured in the Executioner series of action-adventure novels first published in 1982 by American Gold Eagle publishers.

History

Answerable only to the White House, it handles anti-terrorist and anti-crime missions that are beyond the capability of established agencies like the CIA

Central Intelligence Agency

The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...

, NSA

National Security Agency

The National Security Agency/Central Security Service is a cryptologic intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence, as well as protecting U.S...

, and FBI

Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...

. This usually means a mission that the U.S. Government can disclaim any knowledge of if it goes sour, or something that is just too dangerous for regular agencies to handle.

Operating out of a former CIA training facility located in Virginia's

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

Blue Ridge Mountains

The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. This province consists of northern and southern physiographic regions, which divide near the Roanoke River gap. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, starting at its southern-most...

, Stony Man was created to tap into the expertise of Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan, alias The Executioner, is a fictional character who has been serialized in over six hundred novels with sales of more than 200 million, according to Amazon.com. Created by Don Pendleton, Bolan made his first appearance on the printed page in 1969's War Against the Mafia...

, a.k.a. The Executioner, for a covert war against terrorism. Bolan was the perfect choice to lead this new war because of his successful campaign against the Mafia. In his new identity of Col. John Phoenix, U.S. Army (Retired), Bolan undertook several campaigns against terrorists and the KGB, sometimes leading either Able Team or Phoenix Force. In the novel Stony Man Doctrine, he led both teams against a massive terrorist campaign against the United States. All their missions were successful.

However, Mack Bolan and Stony Man would learn that success came with a price.

A KGB-sponsored mercenary team led by a former Green Beret

United States Army Special Forces

The United States Army Special Forces, also known as the Green Berets because of their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force tasked with six primary missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, special reconnaissance, direct action, hostage rescue, and...

named Al Miller assaults the Stony Man compound in an effort to wipe out the organization. The team is dealt with, but not without casualties. The Stony Man computer expert, Aaron Kurtzman, is permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Andrzej Konzaki, Stony Man's weaponsmith

Weaponsmith

Weaponsmith is a broad term relating to a professional weapon maker. This may refer to swords, axes, and any other metal hand-made weapon, though it can also refer to firearms and any other weaponmaker who builds weapons in a non-industrial manner. The weaponsmith would generally have specialized...

is killed in the attack. The most painful casualty for Bolan was the death of his lover, April Rose, who was Stony Man's mission controller. Ms. Rose deliberately steps in the path of a bullet fired by Captain Wade. The Captain, head of Stony Man security, was also a mole

Mole (espionage)

A mole is a spy who works for an enemy nation, but whose loyalty ostensibly lies with his own nation's government. In some usage, a mole differs from a defector in that a mole is a spy before gaining access to classified information, while a defector becomes a spy only after gaining access...

for Al Miller and his cohorts. Wade had killed Miller to keep from being exposed and tried to assassinate Bolan, but Ms. Rose's sacrifice prevented this. Stony Man was attacked three more times subsequent to this attack, once by Jared Quillian, a renegade industrialist, the second time by a leftover Russian KGB agent who posed as a Stony Man blacksuit and used an investigative reporter seeking to make a name for herself as an unwitting accomplice, and the third time by forces from the Nazi organization COMCON.

In another blow to the organization, Mack Bolan, in his identity of Col. John Phoenix, was framed for the assassination of Damien Macek, labor leader and anti-communist dissident

Dissident

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....

, by the KGB, resulting in him being labeled a dangerous, unstable renegade by all law-enforcement and intelligence agencies. In an effort to clear his name, Bolan discovered the plot was conceived by Maj. Gen. Greb Strakhov, head of the KGB's Department 13 executive action unit. Strakhov had masterminded the Macek plot in revenge for the death of his only son, Kyril Strakhov, a test pilot Bolan had killed during a mission in Afghanistan

Afghanistan

Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

to recover a top-secret attack helicopter

Helicopter

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...

called Dragonfire.

During his quest to clear his name, Bolan uncovered evidence that Lee Farnsworth, the director of a rival agency called the CFB (Central Foreign Bureau), was Strakhov's mole inside America's intelligence apparatus. After giving the evidence to the President of the United States, Bolan executed Farnsworth in the Oval Office itself.

After this confrontation, Bolan initiated a one-man war against the KGB, working from a master list of all major KGB agents that he obtained during a mission in Moscow days earlier. He also struck out at other terrorist groups and resumed his war against his old enemy, the Mafia.

After this lengthy one-man war and some soul-searching—not to mention the kidnapping of Hal Brognola's family by the Mafia and renegade CIA agents—Bolan entered into an arms-length alliance with Stony Man, working with his former comrades but not rejoining the organization outright.

It should be noted that Gold Eagle combined the two Executioner spin-off books, Able Team
Able Team
Able Team is a series of action-adventure novels first published in 1982 by American Gold Eagle publishers. It is a spin-off of the Executioner series created by Don Pendleton....

and Phoenix Force
Phoenix Force
Phoenix Force is a series of action-adventure novels first published in 1982 by American Gold Eagle publishers. It is a spin-off of the Executioner series created by Don Pendleton....

, to create the Stony Man series of novels, which are still being published as of 2008.

Commando Teams

Able Team

Able Team

Able Team is a series of action-adventure novels first published in 1982 by American Gold Eagle publishers. It is a spin-off of the Executioner series created by Don Pendleton....

has been assigned to handle anti-terrorist missions inside the United States, but sometimes operates in the lower Americas and Mexico. Its members are Hermann 'Gadgets' Schwarz, Carl 'Ironman' Lyons, and Rosario 'Politician' Blancanales.

Phoenix Force

Phoenix Force

Phoenix Force is a series of action-adventure novels first published in 1982 by American Gold Eagle publishers. It is a spin-off of the Executioner series created by Don Pendleton....

has been assigned to handle anti-terrorist missions outside the United States, but sometimes has handled missions inside U.S. borders if they had international implications. Its current members are David McCarter, Gary Manning, Rafael Encizo, Calvin James, and T.J. Hawkins.

Stony Man Crew

In their fight against criminals and terrorists, Mack Bolan, Able Team and Phoenix Force would be supported by a cadre of loyal allies, some of whom have associations with Mack Bolan from his first Mafia War.

Current

Hal Brognola

Harold Brognola is the Stony Man project director. He is responsible for assigning missions to both Phoenix Force and Able Team, as well as providing them with intelligence, weapons, transportation, and anything else they may require to conduct their assignments. Brognola enjoys chewing on expensive cigars.

Hal is most frequently seen chomping down large amounts of antacid tablets and is almost never without a roll or two in his pockets. Being a high ranking Justice Department

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

official, Hal frequently shuttles back and forth between Stony Man and Washington, D.C. (which he frequently refers to as Wonderland or Wonderland on the Potomac

Potomac

-Places in the United States:Washington, D.C. area:*The Potomac River, which flows through West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC**The Potomac Highlands of West Virginia, a region of the Potomac River's watershed in West Virginia...

).

Started his law-enforcement career as a police officer in Washington, D.C., then went on to become an FBI agent, eventually leading the task force assigned to bring in Mack Bolan. After briefly chasing Bolan for sometime, Hal came to realize that the Executioner was doing a public service and secretly assisted him in his anti-Mafia campaigns. He would later move on to the Sensitive Operations Group, the covert operations section of the Justice Department, which would later have the Stony Man organization under its auspices.

Jack Grimaldi

Stony Man's ace pilot, Grimaldi is often called on to assist in situations which require the use of air assets. Grimaldi is competent with all aircraft, both fixed-wing and helicopters.

A Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

veteran, Grimaldi once flew for the Mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

until he encountered Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan

, who converted him to his cause. Until Stony Man was assembled, Grimaldi served as Bolan's mole, giving the Executioner information on the travels of high-ranking mobsters. Grimaldi would later undertake his first mission for Stony Man when he rescued Mack Bolan during a mission in Panama.

In the series, Jack Grimaldi pilots the Dragon Slayer, a high-tech transport helicopter

Helicopter

with attack capabilities. The Dragon Slayer is outfitted with a 7.62mm minigun and an array of missiles and rockets. It is fast and highly maneuverable, not to mention comfortable for the pilot and passengers.

Aaron "The Bear" Kurtzman

Kurtzman is the computer expert of the Stony Man farm. His role is to obtain intel

Intelligence (information gathering)

Intelligence assessment is the development of forecasts of behaviour or recommended courses of action to the leadership of an organization, based on a wide range of available information sources both overt and covert. Assessments are developed in response to requirements declared by the leadership...

from other government agencies and process it. Kurtzman lost the use of his legs in an assault on Stony Man Farm, and has since been forced to use a wheelchair. He has made several attempts to regain the use of his legs.

Aaron is called "The Bear" because of his physical makeup, sort of like a bear.

Aaron is best known for his coffee which he always has brewing in Stony Man's computer annex. His coffee, which he serves in ceramic mugs, has often been referred to as swill. It has often been said that the most gutsy thing a Stony Man personnel can do is to drink a cup of Aaron's coffee.

Barbara Price

Taking over from April Rose, Barbara Price serves as Stony Man's mission controller. At the request of the President, she assisted with the security clearances when Stony Man was initially set up. She and Mack Bolan are friends and sometime lovers. She was married to Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

defense attorney Kevin Shawnessy for 4 years, but divorced him because of his countless affairs with other women.

Used to work for the NSA as a mission controller and operated under the secret identity of Canary. Had a second cousin on her mother's side who was a member of Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

until the 1970s, when he was thrown out for advocating violence.

Buck Greene

Taking over from the man who replaced the traitorous Captain Wade, Buck Greene serves as Stony Man's chief of security and leads the blacksuits, a security force maintained by Stony Man to provide security for the Farm. Greene once worked on the embassy security detail for the United States Marine Corps

United States Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

. Reports directly to Barbara Price.

Charlie Mott

A former Vietnam veteran and ex-Marine, Charlie Mott is the second Stony Man pilot, behind Jack Grimaldi. Even though he prefers to stick to pilot duties, he has often had to do commando work. Listed as being Canadian in the novel Stony Man V.

John Kissinger

Taking over from the murdered Andrzej Konzaki, John 'Cowboy' Kissinger serves as Stony Man's weaponsmith. Kissinger first worked for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs

Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs

The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs was a predecessor agency of the Drug Enforcement Administration . It was formed as a subsidiary of the United States Department of Justice in 1968, combining the Bureau of Narcotics and Bureau of Drug Abuse Control The Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous...

, the predecessor to the DEA. After the dismantling of the BNDD, Kissinger went freelance, offering his talents to companies like Colt

Colt's Manufacturing Company

Colt's Manufacturing Company is a United States firearms manufacturer, whose first predecessor corporation was founded in 1836 by Sam Colt. Colt is best known for the engineering, production, and marketing of firearms over the later half of the 19th and the 20th century...

, Beretta

Beretta

Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta is an Italian firearms manufacturer. Their firearms are used worldwide for a variety of civilian, law enforcement, and military purposes. It is also known for manufacturing shooting clothes and accessories. Beretta is the oldest active firearms manufacturer in the...

, Heckler & Koch

Heckler & Koch

Heckler & Koch GmbH is a German defense manufacturing company that produces various small arms. Some of their products include the SA80, MP5 submachine gun, G3 automatic rifle, the G36 assault rifle, the HK 416, the MP7 personal defense weapon, the USP series of handguns, and the high-precision...

, and IMI

Israel Military Industries

Israel Weapons Industries , formerly the "Magen" division of the Israel Military Industries Ltd. is an Israeli firearms manufacturer. In 2005, the Small Arms Division of IMI was privatized....

.

The CIA considered hiring Kissinger, but he met Aaron Kurtzman, who recommended him to Brognola. Thus began his career as Stony Man's weapon specialist. He invented his own handgun, the QA-18 Stealthshooter, whose design was stolen by his crooked partner, Howard Crosley. He was able to recover his invention during an Able Team mission in Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

, selling the patent shortly thereafter. Since joining Stony Man, Kissinger's talents have been to the benefit of Mack Bolan, Able Team and Phoenix Force, including instances where he has improved on Konzaki's designs. Has often participated in Stony Man field missions. He was once asked his full name to which he replied "you will never believe it." This was because of the last name Kissinger.

Prof. Huntington Wethers

A former cybernetics professor at UCLA, Huntington 'Hunt' Wethers was recruited by Aaron Kurtzman for his expertise in computers and cybernetics

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

. While Kurtzman looks at computers as a means of leveraging information, Wethers looks at computers as a science.

Akira Tokaido

Of Japanese extraction, Akira Tokaido is an expert computer hacker

Hacker (computer security)

In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

and the youngest member of Stony Man's cybernetic team. He listens to rock music on his headphones, which are often attached to a cassette player or CD player, claiming that it helps him focus on his work. At times, he is unconventional in his thinking and is cocky. He is an expert in kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

and has a deep interest in learning about his Japanese heritage.

Leo Turrin

Like Mack Bolan, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz, Leo 'The Pussy' Turrin is a Vietnam

Vietnam

veteran and former Green Beret

United States Army Special Forces

. His association with the Mafia came because of connections his family had. He rose up through the ranks and became a capo

Caporegime

A caporegime or capodecina, usually shortened to just a capo, is a term used in the Mafia for a high ranking made member of a crime family who heads a "crew" of soldiers and has major social status and influence in the organization...

, involving himself in various criminal activities. However, his Mafia associates were unaware of his most important—and most dangerous—secret:

Leo Turrin was a federal agent.

Code-named Sticker, Turrin was assigned to infiltrate the Mafia at the highest levels by Hal Brognola. During his undercover assignment, Turrin became head of the Mafia's prostitution racket during his stint with the family of Don Sergio Frenchi in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Mack Bolan's hometown. In this capacity, he was inadvertently responsible for the Executioner's sister, Cindy Bolan, becoming a prostitute to help her father pay off the debt he had with Triangle Industrial Finance, Frenchi's loan shark

Loan shark

A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....

ing outfit.

Unaware of Turrin's dual role, Bolan targeted him for execution in one of his first battles with the Mafia, but his execution attempt was thwarted by Turrin's wife, Angelina. It was only later that Bolan became aware of Turrin's true mission. Since then, he and Turrin became allies and close friends, a friendship that became stronger when Turrin's family had been kidnapped by Mafia soldiers.

When Turrin's role in the Mafia ended, he became a high-ranking Justice Department official under the name Leonard Justice. To this day, his Mafia associates think he is semi-retired but available for special matters related to the Mob.

Former

Dr. Lao Ti

Of Vietnamese and Mongolian extraction, Lao Ti was brought in to serve as Stony Man's communication

Telecommunication

Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

s and computer specialist after the death of April Rose during the attack on Stony Man Farm. Even though she was originally Aaron Kurtzman's technical assistant, she often joined Able Team in the field. During an Able Team mission involving Maria Blancanales, the youngest of two sisters of Rosario 'Pol' Blancanales, Lao Ti was severely wounded during a shoot-out and took an extended leave of absence from her Stony Man duties. Was contacted by the State Department, who offered her a position with the U.S. Embassy in Taipei, Taiwan.

Deceased

April Rose

As the first mission controller and overseer of Stony Man Farm, the organization's headquarters, April Rose would at first seem an unlikely choice to become part of a counter-terrorist organization. She had started out as a pacifist, disapproving of war and its violent nature. She first met Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan

during the closing week of his first Mafia

Mafia

war, when Hal Brognola had assigned her to drive the Executioner's War Wagon, which was a surprise to Bolan when he first met her. In response to that surprise, April challengingly asked him the following question:

You don't like what you see?

His reply did not come until a mission involving a renegade Japanese industrialist (Executioner #53: Invisible Assassins) when he replied, "I like what I see, April." Standing over her grave, Bolan would later say, "Yes, April, I love what I see."

Hal once said of April, "This woman could be the love of Mack's life," describing her as "having a super model's figure." It is presumed that Hal recruited April as an inducement to get Bolan to join Stony Man. April's biggest desire was to be "Mrs. Bolan."

As a pacifist, she had disapproved of Bolan on ethical and personal grounds when they first met, even though she had found herself attracted to the big man in black. That all changed when the Executioner saved her life during one of his missions against the Mafia. She abandoned her pacifist ways and became loyal to Bolan and his cause.

This loyalty would motivate her to fight alongside Bolan during his stint at Stony Man, including his mission against Paradine, a freelance mercenary Bolan believed dead in a previous mission. During a firefight in his second encounter with Paradine, April was severely wounded. In the first attack on Stony Man Farm, April's final act of loyalty was to step in the path of the bullet fired by the traitorous Captain Wade. She is buried alongside the late Andrzej Konzaki on the grounds of Stony Man Farm.

Her favorite song was On The Road Again
On the Road Again (Willie Nelson song)
"On the Road Again" is a song made famous by country music singer Willie Nelson, and is part of the soundtrack to the 1980 movie Honeysuckle Rose....

, sung by Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson

Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...

Andrzej Konzaki

Before John Kissinger came along, Konzaki was the first weaponsmith

Weaponsmith

for Stony Man. He served in Vietnam as the leader of his own platoon. During the Tet Offensive, Konzaki led his platoon to the rescue of a unit that had been ambushed. During the mission, Konzaki was himself ambushed by a sniper who had shot him in both legs. He earned a Silver Star

Silver Star

The Silver Star is the third-highest combat military decoration that can be awarded to a member of any branch of the United States armed forces for valor in the face of the enemy....

for his actions, but lost his legs.

He was recruited by the CIA for his expertise as an armorer and weapons expert, assigning him to their Special Weapons Development branch. When Stony Man was first assembled, Konzaki was unofficially attached to the organization. His talents proved helpful to Stony Man, including his re-engineering of Mack Bolan's Beretta 93-R machine pistol. His most well known Stony Man innovation is a specially modified Atchisson Assault Shotgun

Atchisson Assault Shotgun

The Auto Assault-12 , originally designed and known as the Atchisson Assault Shotgun, is a shotgun developed in 1972 by Maxwell Atchisson. The current 2005 version has been developed over 18 years since the patent was sold to Military Police Systems, Inc. The original design was the basis of...

he made for Carl Lyons.

He became the first casualty in the attack on Stony Man Farm, and Lyons would call his modified shotgun the Konzak in order to honor him.

Associates

In their fight against evil, Stony Man and Mack Bolan had allies who were not members of Stony Man, yet were very helpful.

Current

Brig. Gen. James Crawford, USA Ret.

A native of Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

, James Crawford is a retired brigadier general

Brigadier General

Brigadier general is a senior rank in the armed forces. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries, usually sitting between the ranks of colonel and major general. When appointed to a field command, a brigadier general is typically in command of a brigade consisting of around 4,000...

of the U.S. Army, and was Mack Bolan's commanding officer in Vietnam

Vietnam

. He oversaw the creation of both Stony Man and the Central Foreign Bureau, the agency run by Lee Farnsworth. In Executioner #62, Day Of Mourning, Crawford, like the President, hoped to work out a compromise between the two agencies. His daughter, Kelly Crawford, was the girlfriend

Girlfriend

Girlfriend is a term that can refer to either a female partner in a non-marital romantic relationship or a female non-romantic friend that is closer than other friends....

of Grover Jones, a.k.a. Damu Abdul Ali, an associate of Al Miller, but broke up with Jones after he used her as a shield in a confrontation with Bolan.

Tommy Anders

Born Giuseppe Androsepitone, Tommy Anders is a stand-up comic known as The Ethnician, so named for poking fun at people's ethnic preconceptions and prejudices, with the Ranger Girls serving as his back-up act. His association with Mack Bolan began when he ran afoul of the Mafia, incurring their wrath by refusing to associate with Mafia-affiliated promoters and booking agents. It was some time after that Anders secretly became a federal agent, joining Carl Lyons and the Ranger Girls in Hal Brognola's SOG.

Ranger Girls

Serving as the back-up act for Tommy Anders, the Ranger Girls were a group of female multi-talented musicians led by Toby Ranger, the girl for which the group is named.

Introduced in Vegas Vendetta and reappearing in Hawaiian Hellground and Detroit Deathwatch, Toby Ranger was Bolan's most frequent companion, and his only repeat engagement, until the introduction of April Rose.

The other girls were Georgette Chebleu, a French-Canadian, Smiley Dublin and Sally Palmer. Mack Bolan became acquainted with them during his first Mafia War, when Toby risked her life to help him during a mission in Las Vegas. It was only after the end of the mission that Bolan discovered that the Ranger Girls were federal agents. Before Stony Man was founded, the Ranger Girls, Carl Lyons and Tommy Anders worked with the Executioner on many missions, including a mission in Hawaii to bring down an alliance between the Mafia and Communist China.

Currently, there are only three Ranger Girls still involved in crime fighting. The fourth Ranger Girl, Georgette Chebleu, was tortured and mutilated by Mafia turkey doctor Fat Sal, prompting Bolan to give her a mercy bullet. The Executioner would later avenge her.

The Ranger Girls once aided Bolan in an escape from the mafia by attracting attention with a "wild go-go routine." Go Go routines were extremely popular in those days. This author remembers Toby by a catch phrase when she was attempting to get Mack to help out with one of their missions when she said, "We're soging it." Soging was a made up word out of the acronym for the group - Sensitive Operations Group or SOG for short.

Johnny Gray

Johnny Gray is Mack Bolan's younger brother. Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Its area code is 413. Its ZIP code is 01201...

, he was the only survivor of the murder-suicide

Murder-suicide

A murder–suicide is an act in which an individual kills one or more other persons before or at the same time as killing himself or herself. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms, including:...

that occurred in the Bolan family home while Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan

himself was serving in Vietnam

Vietnam

. It was he who revealed to his older brother that their sister, Cindy Bolan, had become a prostitute to help her father with the debt he incurred from Triangle Industrial Finance.

After he began his war, Mack Bolan left Johnny in the care of a former lover, Valentina Querente. The Mafia learned of Johnny's connection to the Executioner after Querente enrolled him in a private Massachusetts school that had the child of Harold 'The Skipper' Sicilia, Boston's capo, among its students. Sicilia and his men kidnapped both Johnny and Querente to use against the Executioner, but his scheme backfired, because Bolan not only rescued them but also brought down Sicilia's empire.

Years later, Querente would marry federal agent Jack Gray, and the two would raise Johnny as their own, giving him the last name of Gray, with Bolan as his middle name. Johnny would join the Navy and participate in a mission in Lebanon, which would be his first taste of combat.

When Bolan became Col. John Phoenix, Leo Turrin and Hal Brognola led Johnny to believe that he had died. It was only after he moved to San Diego that he learned that his older brother was still alive. The two would meet and go head-to-head with San Diego's godfather, Manny 'the Mover' Marcello, and his daughter, Angelina. During this mission, Johnny's fiancé

Engagement

An engagement or betrothal is a promise to marry, and also the period of time between proposal and marriage which may be lengthy or trivial. During this period, a couple is said to be betrothed, affianced, engaged to be married, or simply engaged...

, Sandy Darlow, became a victim of the Mafia's turkey specialists, like the late Georgette Chebleu.

At the end of the mission, Johnny proposed the idea of a support base where Mack Bolan could get some R & R and be safe from harm. Operating out of a secluded home in Del Mar, California

Del Mar, California

Del Mar is an upscale beach town in San Diego County, California. The population was 4,161 at the 2010 census, down from 4,389 at the 2000 census. The San Diego County Fair is hosted on the Del Mar Fairgrounds every summer. Del Mar is Spanish for "of the sea" or "by the sea", because it is located...

, the support base would be called Strongbase One and contain the latest weapons and technology for the Executioner to use in his war against evil.

Johnny Gray is one of the few people outside of Stony Man who knows intimate details about the organization without having visited. Often provides intelligence to Stony Man and Mack Bolan. Also, he participates in some of his brother's missions, much to the Executioner's misgivings.

Deceased

Nino Tattaglia

Nino Tattaglia's association with Mack Bolan

Mack Bolan

goes back to his first Mafia war. Tattaglia was an underboss

Underboss

Underboss is a position within the leadership structure of Sicilian and American Mafia crime families. The underboss is second in command to the boss...

for Don Carlo Nazarione, head of the Mafia

Mafia

in Baltimore, Maryland. However, during his Mafia career, he was captured by federal agents for a double homicide. He was given a choice: become a government informant

Informant

An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...

, or face the electric chair

Electric chair

Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...

.

He wisely chose the former option, operating under the code-name Sticker, like Leo Turrin before him, and in fact replacing Turrin as the primary source for inside information on the Mob

Mafia

. His information came in handy on an Executioner mission in Baltimore, when he notified Bolan on the Nazarione family's attempt to take over the Baltimore Police Department

Baltimore Police Department

The Baltimore Police Department provides police services to the city of Baltimore, Maryland and was officially established by the Maryland Legislature on March 16, 1853...

with the help of one of its high-ranking officers, Capt. Harley Davis. With Nino's help, Bolan ended the plot and dealt with Nazarione once and for all.

During his time as a mole

Mole (espionage)

, Tattaglia underwent some private changes. He was no longer the evil criminal he once was and was now committed to the cause of justice. He would pay a terrible price for that commitment, as his double role was discovered by the Mafia, causing him to be executed by the Mob. To this day, his presence is missed by Bolan, Brognola and Turrin.

Georgette Chebleu

The only Ranger Girl to be killed in action during a tour of duty with the Justice Department. A French-Canadian, Chebleu became acquainted with Mack Bolan during his Las Vegas mission. During another Bolan mission in Detroit, Michigan, she was captured by Mafia soldiers and brought to Fat Sal, the Mafia turkey doctor. She was severely tortured and mutilated before Bolan came to rescue her. Unwilling to let her continue to suffer, Bolan shot her at point-blank range through the head. He avenged her by killing those involved. Chebleu would, therefore, not have a chance to become part of Stony Man.

Enemies

Stony Man has locked horns with the most dangerous enemies to freedom and justice. They range from organized crime syndicates and terrorist groups to private companies involved in criminal activity.

Criminal Organizations

MERGE

After the losses they suffered at the hands of Mack Bolan during his war on organized crime, remnants of the Mafia formed alliances with the Unione Corse

Unione Corse

The Unione Corse is a secretive criminal organization operating primarily out of Corsica and Marseilles in France. Unlike the Sicilian Mafia, it has not attempted to gain a foothold in the United States, and thus does not have the other organization's notoriety...

, the Colombian cartels and the Mexican Mafia

Mexican Mafia

The Mexican Mafia , also known as La Eme , 13 is a Mexican American criminal organization, and is one of the oldest and most powerful prison gangs in the United States.-Foundation:...

to form MERGE. Phoenix Force uncovered the existence of the organization while investigating the assassinations of two American officials in the Bahamas.

They would later come across MERGE again in San Francisco

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

while tracking the perpetrators of an attack on officers of the U.S. Coast Guard off the California coast. This time, however, they discovered that MERGE had locked horns with its Oriental counterpart, a syndicate called TRIO. They would also discover that TRIO was responsible for the attack on the Coast Guard officers.

MERGE would later resurface in the Los Angeles area, where they kidnapped a scientist who was involved in the Strategic Defense Initiative and held him for ransom to either the United States of the Soviet Union. In this encounter with MERGE, Karl Hahn stood in as a replacement for Rafael Encizo, who was recovering from the injury he received on a mission against ODESSA

ODESSA

The ODESSA, from the German Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, meaning “Organization of Former SS Members,” is believed to have been an international Nazi network set up toward the end of World War II by a group of SS officers...

in France.

Their last known confrontation with MERGE was down in Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, involving one of its kingpins, a Bolivian drug lord named El Tiburon. His organization, known as El Dorado, had an association with the Colombian cartels and had been selected by MERGE to handle their latest enterprise: coordinated attacks against law enforcement teams dedicated to stopping the drug trade. To this end, El Tiburon formed an alliance with a Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n military officer named Major Pescador. Phoenix Force invaded El Tiburon's lair and ended the scheme. During this mission Rafael Encizo found his long-lost younger brother, Raul Encizo, who had become a Communist and was helping Maj. Pescador in his work with MERGE.

TRIO

An Oriental counterpart to MERGE, TRIO was made up of the three most powerful organized crime groups in the Far East.

The Yi-chyun Hai Shee, or Black Serpent Society, was the Chinese part of TRIO. It was one of many tongs

Tong (organization)

The word tong means "hall" or "gathering place". In North America a tong is a type of organization found among Chinese living in the United States and Canada. These organizations are described as secret societies or sworn brotherhoods and are often tied to criminal activity...

formed in the 17th Century to combat the tyranny of China's Manchu overlords. Under the command of its leader, Wang Tse-Tu, the Black Serpent Society was one of the few tongs to go international, establishing branches in the United States and Western Europe.

The Hebi Uji, or Snake Clan, was the Japanese part of TRIO. It was one of the countless Yakuza

Yakuza

, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...

organizations that had roots in feudal Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, where they were described as being "thieves with honor." Led by Shimo Goro, the Snake Clan already had established a foothold in America by the time Japan became a player in international trade. Like most Yakuza organizations, the Snake Clan became involved in gambling, prostitution and gunrunning.

The New Horde was the Mongolian part of TRIO. Under the command of Tosha Khan, the New Horde was involved in counterfeiting, white slavery, drugs, assassination and professional thievery. Born Altajin Illyvich Dzadgad, Tosha Khan claimed to be a descendant of Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....

, the famed Mongol conqueror. Even though its activities were widespread and had a lot of manpower, the New Horde didn't have the connections and influence he needed to be a player in organized crime. Therefore, it joined forces with the Black Serpent Society and the Snake Clan.

Thus, TRIO was born.

Phoenix Force first learned of TRIO when it was investigating the aforementioned attack on the Coast Guard officers off California. It was during this mission that Calvin James got Phoenix Force in touch with John Trent, his old friend from his days in the SFPD. To help Phoenix Force, Trent turned to his uncle, Inoshiro Nakezuri, who had by this time become part of another Yakuza clan, the Kaiju Clan. The information Nakezuri gave to his nephew was of great value to Phoenix Force.

Phoenix Force would later confront TRIO again in the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, where they were investigating the disappearance of a Colombian ship carrying priceless treasure from Colombia. They would discover that TRIO attacked the ship and joined forces with the New People's Army

New People's Army

The New People's Army is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. It was formed on March 29, 1969. The Maoist NPA conducts its armed guerrilla struggle based on the strategical line of 'protracted people's war'.The NPA exacts so called "revolutionary taxes" from business owners...

, the Filipino communist terror organization. They also learned that Lt. Robert Ferris and Lt. Daniel Mitchell, two American Naval Intelligence

Office of Naval Intelligence

The Office of Naval Intelligence was established in the United States Navy in 1882. ONI was established to "seek out and report" on the advancements in other nations' navies. Its headquarters are at the National Maritime Intelligence Center in Suitland, Maryland...

officers in charge of a contingent of U.S. Navy personnel assigned to protect the ship, had assisted TRIO in taking the ship in exchange for money to pay off severe gambling debts. With the assistance of Mahmud, a Filipino

Philippines

native and friend of David McCarter, Phoenix Force recovered the treasure.

In an unusual situation (Phoenix Force #27: Weep, Moscow, Weep), Phoenix Force would join forces with the KGB

KGB

The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...

to recover a biological weapon stolen from a Russian laboratory by the New Horde as part of a campaign of blackmail against the nations of the world.

The last Phoenix Force mission against TRIO involved their old friend John Trent, who Stony Man believed had been responsible for the assassination of an executive for a Japanese automotive company. For this mission, they went to Col. Ken Ikeda, a Kompei officer they worked with when Keio Ohara was part of the team. They would learn that Trent was innocent of the crime. Trent and Phoenix Force would work with the Green Tiger Clan, a Yakuza clan that rivaled the Snake Clan, to bring down TRIO once and for all.

Terrorist Organizations

The New Order

First appearing in Phoenix Force #41, Amazon Strike, this terrorist group is a neo-Nazi

Neo-Nazism

Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....

organization that was based in the Amazon Jungle

Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest , also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America...

of Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

. Its leader was Kurt Mohn, German industrialist. He was the son of Maj. Joachim Mohn, an SS officer, and Anna Kaufmann, a retired German showgirl. All his life, the young Kurt Mohn was indoctrinated into the beliefs of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. When his father died, Mohn inherited his company, Mohn Industries, which the former SS major founded with a substantial amount of cash he had accumulated during World War 2.

To finance the New Order's activities, Mohn established a cocaine smuggling ring in the Amazon, buying highly placed officials in the Brazilian government. This prompted a Brazilian police officer, Lt. Louis Farrango, to go to his DEA contact first, followed up by a secret visit to the Brazilian president, who told Farrango that he suspected that a secret cabal in his administration was consorting with an outside enemy group, later revealed to be the New Order.

For this mission, Phoenix Force and Stony Man chief pilot Jack Grimaldi joined forces with Farrango and his informant, a drug user named Jorgio Cavantes. However, during the mission, Cavantes betrayed Phoenix Force, leading them into an ambush, resulting in Katz, James and Manning getting captured by Mohn's men. Cavantes would later expose Louis Farrango to his New Order masters, resulting in the Brazilian policeman getting captured and tortured. Encizo and McCarter, the only members of Phoenix Force not captured, came to his rescue, but were too late to save his life.

During their captivity, Katz, James and Manning discovered that Farrango's partner, Emilio Santoro, who had infiltrated Mohn's organization, had been uncovered by the New Order and exposed to a lethal bacteriological weapon developed by the New Order. Called the Armageddon Virus, Mohn intended it to be used in a campaign of terror against the world's major nations, believing it would pave the way for a New Order takeover. However, Phoenix Force and Grimaldi, with the help of captured members of a Brazilian Indian tribe, ended Mohn's twisted scheme, destroying the data regarding the virus and obliterating the complex. Mohn escaped in the confusion, and hasn't been seen since.

This mission is a pivotal incident in Stony Man history, because it is when Jack Grimaldi first used the Dragon Slayer, Stony Man's first operational combat helicopter.

Foreign Intelligence Agencies

KGB

The Russian KGB

KGB

was a recurring antagonist in the history of Stony Man. As the most famous and important intelligence agency of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

during the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, the KGB attempted to spread Soviet influence, and communism in general, wherever and whenever the opportunity arose. This was often accomplished using less savory methods.

The KGB's credits include sponsoring terrorist activities, assassination of Western diplomats, theft of prototype nuclear missiles, kidnapping American researches, and various other dastardly acts. Many of their plots have been foiled or brought to a halt by swift action from either Mack Bolan, Phoenix Force or Able Team; however, on one occasion (as noted previously), Phoenix Force has actually cooperated with the KGB to prevent a stolen Soviet biological agent from falling into undesirable hands.

Despite their frequent failures due to the intervention of Mack Bolan and Stony Man, the Kremlin was not easily deterred by failure, and the KGB continued to conduct further covert warfare against the West until its demise in 1991 as a result of the end of the Cold War.

Trivia

The headquarters of Stony Man is known as Stony Man Farm because it appears to the world as a working farm and its proximity to Stony Man Mountain, located in Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park

Shenandoah National Park encompasses part of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the U.S. state of Virginia. This national park is long and narrow, with the broad Shenandoah River and valley on the west side, and the rolling hills of the Virginia Piedmont on the east...

. Stony Man Farm got its name because of its proximity to Stony Man Mountain where the face of the mountain resembles a dour looking Indian chief.

External links

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