Blood Heat Zero (6 page)

Bolan whistled softly. Pieces of the puzzle locked snugly into place. He remembered the Soviet factory ship at Akureyri, the seaman in the watch cap, snatches of conversation.

Stuff that bored him then had now, suddenly, become loaded with significance.

We buy our oil from the Soviets.

They got a right to put in here.

They started a mining concession.

The Russians are flying in heavy equipment through Husavik.

Right.

Husavik was not far from Jokulsa a Fjollum. From a bluff overlooking the river he was now navigating, Bolan had seen the mine workings during his drive from Akureyri to Egilsstadir.

It all fit. He figured the workings were no more than a cover for some illicit activity connected with the river. And the lookout post beneath the glacier maybe one of several along the river's course was just a fail-safe precaution to make sure nobody stumbled on the secret.

If that was so, it was no surprise the plotters had gotten nervous when the Executioner showed... and announced his intention to explore the Jokulsa a Fjollum!

And that would be reason enough for the chain of attempts by the death squads to write him off. Because they would have to get him out of the way, whether he was making the trip because he knew about the plot or just by coincidence.

And the hardmen he wasted could well have been Russians. Their MO, too especially the hypo-and-brandy ploy at the Reykjavik hotel was worthy of the KGB at that insidious organization's most devious.

But if a corner of the puzzle was now completed, the center remained blank.

Bolan knew who his enemies were and why they wanted him fixed. For good.

But he was no nearer uncovering the secret they were so anxious to protect.

What could the Russians be planning in Iceland? ICBM silos? Antimissile sites?

No way. With the ranges at their disposal firing from home, who needed Iceland?

Launching pads for cruise missiles or short-range nukes aimed, on the Cuban pattern, at NATO shipping or the more vulnerable countries belonging to the alliance?

Uh-uh. No mine workings could serve as a cover for that kind of stuff.

Practically every town in the country boasted an airstrip there would be far too many overflights by coast-guard choppers and private planes for surface projects of that nature to remain undetected. In any case the concession was officially leased; plant was being flown in openly; presumably the authorities enjoyed some kind of inspection facility.

It seemed obvious, too, that the whole deal was tied in with the river.

And the sailor in Akureyri had mentioned Red navy specialists.

Some kind of marine detection unit then? Some monitoring aid for those so-called factory ships in the North Atlantic? Something in any case that must, for Bolan's money, be located underground? Or underwater?

Whatever, he would find out the truth.

Bolan drank a can of beer, helped himself to some fruit that was left in the alcove and returned to the kayak.

The Russian voice on the radio was still querulously demanding news. Bolan switched on the light, pushed himself out into midstream and continued his journey.

The two snipers he had killed had used an inflatable raft to reach their lookout post. Even with rapids and an occasional waterfall, this had to mean that the river, from here on down to its exit from beneath the glacier, was largely navigable.

No class-six stretches of white water, no cascades dropping over unclimbable shelves, no tunnels with roofs too low to allow a canoeist to pass.

Bolan wondered if there would be other, more dangerous obstacles. A second lookout post, for instance, with more alert patrols?

He guessed not. There was no other entry to the subterranean watercourse; one post between the sinkhole and the exit would surely be enough.

That didn't rule out the possibility of an emplacement somewhere along the Vatnajokull's terminal moraine. That was where he would install a backup team himself, if he was determined to block all boating on the upper part of the river.

He guessed right on both counts.

But before he saw the sky again, there were natural hazards to overcome.

The river twisted through caverns no more than ten feet high, ran out across vast chambers whose roofs were lost in darkness far above the flashlight's range. At times it flowed fast and deep, then bubbled over rock steps, where there was scarcely enough draft to float the kayak.

Other times the waterway lost itself in underground lakes so wide it was hard to locate the main channel among the network of passages.

Bolan steered past chutes of freezing water, hot geysers that spewed mud through the surface of the stream, tributary falls that thundered in his ears and veiled the flashlight beam with mist.

He encountered only three major difficulties.

The first was a cataract where the river divided into tiny streams that ran for what seemed hundreds of yards over a slope of smooth pebbles and forced him to carry the kayak on his back while he maneuvered the light to show up treacherous bed beneath the shallow water.

The second could have buried him beneath the Vatnajokull for keeps.

He chose the wrong outlet on the far side of a deep, still lake and found himself being carried faster and faster by a strong current that flowed between narrowing walls and a roof so low that he could barely wield his paddle. Then, as he realized his mistake, the stream careered away at right angles and poured through an arch into a basin hollowed from the rock at a much lower level.

Desperately Bolan flexed his feet against the pegs, straining knees against the control bracings as he dug a blade hard in and leaned against the remorseless pull of the water to bring the kayak broadside onto the flow.

The vessel swung slowly, too slowly, around. The current jammed it fast across the opening. The fiberglass hull creaked as water roared past and down.

Bolan was thankful for the mishap.

The water was too deep to stand in; in any case the current would have swept him away through the narrow opening.

The pool into which it plunged was at least thirty feet below, judging by the sound of the fall. And even if he survived the drop, he could never get out alive.

Shakily he unfastened the spray skirt and half rose, reaching for the rock above the opening. He figured that if he was strong enough to maneuver the craft away from the arch and force it along the wall, against the current, until it was safe to swing around and use the paddle again, there was a risk the hull might be damaged against the abrasive basalt.

It was a risk he had to take.

Bolan was accustomed to them. And here he had no choice.

He was in good physical shape, but even with his immense strength and determination it was more than thirty minutes before he shoved the kayak out from the wall, grabbed the paddle in his raw, bleeding hands and used his remaining energy in a battle against the current.

The third difficulty was too damned close for comfort.

It happened as the river, wide now and flowing swiftly, rounded a sharp curve.

He was suddenly confronted by a single wave, four feet high and boiling above a rockfall, scouring a line of swirling suckholes from the riverbed beyond. And in the center of the flow, immediately ahead of the canoe, stood a jagged column that must have fallen from the roof too recently for water to have planed away the cruel edges.

If the kayak was dashed against that wicked rock, Bolan knew he could kiss the rest of the trip goodbye.

Maybe the rest of his life, too.

The maneuver was not all that difficult for an experienced canoeist.

It was the suddenness of the rock's appearance, whirling out of the dark only feet away from the flashlight, and the lightning speed with which he had to take evasive action that taxed Mack Bolan's honed reactions to their limits.

He plunged the paddle deep into the water, then shifted his weight and slalomed the kayak through 180 degrees to face upstream.

Then a single savage bite with the square-tipped blade thrust them aside into the primary channel.

After that there was no time for anything but prayer.

Sucked onward by the accelerating flood, the kayak surfed the wave stern first, barely missing the deadly rock.

The craft shuddered crazily, almost capsized in the wild water... and at last floated out into the center of a placid pool three hundred feet wide.

Bolan grasped the paddle and propelled the kayak toward the far side of the pool with swift, sure strokes.

Ten minutes later, the darkness thinned, dissolved, and the lightweight craft glided out between dirty gray ice crags into the open air.

The snipers were posted behind a group of boulders a mile downstream from where the river emerged.

There were, in fact, Bolan discovered, several streams flowing out from beneath the glacier. Some meandered through the conglomerate calf rocks, stones, mud and sand scoured from the earth's surface by the glacier and deposited around its outer fringe.

Some formed pools in which ice masses, broken off from the main flow, floated like miniature bergs. Some channeled straight through the moraine to join the main stream.

A dozen hit teams would have been needed to cover all these exits. It was logical therefore, the Executioner reasoned, that the Russians would wait until all these watercourses joined to form one waterway and place a single patrol there.

But the theory had to be checked. He beached the kayak on a gravel spit where the last tributary flowed in and climbed a fifteen-foot bank of shale to make his initial recon.

It was late afternoon. Low cloud cover transformed the sky into a uniform gray. A chill wind blew over a bare rock plateau that stretched as far as he could see in every direction.

Crouched low so that he would not be silhouetted against the skyline, Bolan scanned the bleak terrain. The dun-colored plateau eroded remains of an age-old lava flow was marked with a darker, winding trail that charted the course of the river.

A quarter mile away, the channel gouged from the basalt looped into a wide oxbow. It was on the outside of this curve, Bolan guessed, that a backup team would most likely be posted.

He was right.

It was hard to see at first, because a camouflage tarp had been rigged above the emplacement to minimize detection from the air. But there was movement above a rockfall rampart, a dull glint of metal, maybe a reflection from a pair of binoculars, that attracted Bolan's attention.

He guessed there were two gunners beneath the tarp. Perhaps three. And he had to take them out before continuing his voyage, although, with every voice that failed to respond to radio queries from base, the vigilance of the Soviet HQ personnel would be sharpened and increased.

The snipers were alert, too.

Discreet as Bolan's movements had been, they were spotted by the lookouts. He saw rock chips fly and heard the screech of a ricochet before the crisp, sharp explosion of the rifle shot reached him.

The marksman fired twice more before Bolan dropped from sight, momentarily shaken. The gunner was a fair shot, considering the distance.

Bolan felt the hot wind of one slug above his hair; the other sliced a fragment of rock away moments before he was to grab it as a handhold. The soldier decided it was healthier down by the riverside!

Reinstalled in the kayak, the warrior allowed himself to drift downstream between the rocky banks, using the paddle only if the craft threatened to backtrack into an eddy or snag on an obstruction. He left the spray skirt stowed in the bow compartment the river ran smooth and fairly deep here, and he might have to spring out in a hurry.

He was, he judged, two bends above the oxbow when a sight line past a two-hundred-yard reach and between two opposing bluffs gave him a glimpse of the killers hideout.

It was a momentary view, before the emplacement disappeared behind one of the bluffs. But it was not reassuring.

One guy was left beneath the tarp, toting what looked like a submachine gun. Two others had left the shelter, one on either side, to scramble away between the boulders. Each had a hunting rifle slung across his back.

But they weren't after caribou, Bolan felt certain. The Russians were planning to bracket him with a double enfilade.

He took up the paddle and pin-wheeled the canoe out into the center of the current. With swift strokes he belted the craft toward the nearer of the two bluffs. A couple of handguns, however efficient and however skilled the shooter, were no match for the weapons arrayed against him. Especially if he was going to be under fire from three separate points.

There was no way he could shoot his way out of this one in open confrontation stealth and wits were the operative words. And the number-one priority there was to find a hiding place.

He stroked the kayak into a pool hollowed from the basalt and overhung by a shelf of harder rock. Here he would be visible only to someone standing immediately opposite on the other side of the river.

Right now there was no watcher. But Bolan's own view was similarly restricted. He climbed out of the kayak and waded to the inner margin of the pool. He carried the Beretta, its 20-round magazine in place, in his right hand. The .44 AutoMag, fully loaded, was stashed inside the zippered front of his wet suit.

He trod across a narrow strip of shingle and hauled himself up onto the projecting shelf. The sound of the water cascading from his wet suit would be lost in the burble of the river.

From the shelf there was a wider view of the far bank, of the boulders bordering the entrance to the oxbow, of the bare plateau above.

But there was no sign of the Russians. The emplacement was out of sight around the bend. Nothing moved among the rocks at the edge of the ancient lava flow. No bird flew, no vegetation stirred in the wind, even the lowering clouds appeared stationary.

For Bolan there was only one course of action he must take out his adversaries one by one. But first he had to know where they were. Before they could become targets for the Executioner's hellfire attacks they had to show themselves.