Don Pendleton - Blood Heat Zero

He woke as the right faded and continued on his way to Grimsstadir.

So far, no clear plan had formed in his mind. He would keep following the Russians, for sure. But now that the kayak was gone, organization of any precise details relating to the chase would have to be played by ear. There was money zippered into his belt.

Perhaps he could rent another boat at Grimsstadir.

He knew, too, that Bjornstrom had survived the dangers of the waterfalls.

But whether or not the big Icelander would rejoin him was no more than a question mark.

Whatever, he would play the cards the way he always did, the way they were dealt.

What astonished him this time was the joker he found in his hand.

The last half mile of his journey to the silent, shuttered town was along a paved highway. Before the first houses there was a gas station with a single pump. He was striding silently past when a voice whispered from the shadows behind the pump.

"Mr. Mack Bolan?" The warrior stopped in midstride, hairs prickling on the nape of his neck. His guns were still inside the plastic carrier.

"Who wants to know?" he said huskily.

"A friend. I have a gift for you from Gunnar."

Bolan's taut muscles relaxed. It couldn't be a trap there was no way the Russians could have known the identity of the second fighter who had downed their chopper.

"Advance, friend," he said dryly, shades of army guard duty flooding his memory, "and be recognized." He caught his breath.

The figure stepping out from behind the pump was that of a woman. As far as he could see in the half light she was tall, slim and blond. Her features were in shadow, but he could see that her hair was cut very short, that she wore jeans and a sweater... and, yeah, that she was stacked.

Most surprising of all was the "gift" that she held out to him without another word.

It was a Heckler and Koch G-11 caseless assault rifle.

The Heckler and Koch G-11 looks more like a carrying case for some esoteric musical instrument than a death machine. The twenty-nine-inch grooved plastic housing has no protuberances and only two holes the muzzle and an opening for ejecting misfired rounds.

The pistol grip beneath islet the exact center of gravity and the carrying handle above it also acts as an optical sight.

The rate of fire is very high two thousand rounds per minute maximum, but this is reduced to six hundred on normal autofire.

Although the one hundred rounds contained by the weapon are only 4.7 mm caliber they can be fired in 3-round bursts each lasting only ninety milliseconds and each capable of piercing a steel helmet at a range of five hundred yards.

Mack Bolan was familiar with the gun and its capability. In the present circumstances it was a welcome gift, particularly if there was going to be any action underwater. But its arrival, and the manner of that, was as mysterious as the rest of the events of the past few days.

"I don't understand," he said. "Who are you? How come Gunnar knew I would be here on this road at this time?"

Her name, she told him, was Erika Axelsson. She was a friend of Bjornstrom's. He was aware of her smile in the dawn light.

"It was not so difficult. Gunnar thought at first you had been drowned at the Fjallagfoss. He was very sad. But later one of the Fokker coast-guard planes reported a man sleeping between rocks on the banks of the Jokulsa a Fjollum, and he guessed that it could be you."

Bolan shook his head in bewilderment. He must have been beat, all right he hadn't even heard the plane.

"After that," Erika continued, "well, he said he knew you must come to town. He knew you would probably make it at night. This is the only road you could come by."

"Yeah, but he didn't know he couldn't have known what time I'd arrive. I didn't know myself."

"That was not so much a problem. All I had to do was wait. I have been here since midnight," the woman said simply.

"You waited for me all night?" Bolan was astonished. "Well, I am grateful. But I don't get it. What's your angle? For that matter, what's his?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean... well, why are you doing this?"

"I told you. I am his friend."

"Okay. But people don't hang in around deserted gas stations all night toting this kind of thing." He hefted the assault rifle in both hands. "I mean, you have to agree it's a little... unusual."

"Gunner is an unusual man."

"Yeah, I found that out. Luckily for me, too. He says he's mad at the Russians for screwing around in his country and he wants to find out why. But that can't be the whole story. What is he really? Some kind of cop?"

"You will have to ask Gunnar," Erika said.

Bolan grinned. "I already did. I didn't get very far. But I'll keep at it. I don't give up that easy."

"Gunner, also. He is a very determined man. But sometimes even for such men it is necessary to trust people, trust them without knowing everything."

"Sure it is," Bolan said. "I think your friend Gunnar and me proved that. Still, even with someone you trust, there are times when it would help to know just who you are trusting!" But he could pry nothing more from the woman about herself, about Bjornstrom or about the special, secret interest he showed in the Russian intrigue.

Bolan sighed. As soon as he located one piece of the puzzle and locked it into place, another sector blanked out on him.

"Gunner asked that you should wear these," Erika said. She ducked back into the shadows and produced baggy sailcloth pants, a fisherman's sweater and a battered watch cap with a shiny peak. "He will meet you at the lakehead at midday. You will find him by the small jetty, in a rubber dinghy with the motor outside, you know?"

"Whatever you say." Bolan drew the clothes on over his black-quit. He was past asking questions. He had told himself he would play the cards the way they were dealt. So okay, here was a fresh hand, straight out of the shoe. "What do I do between now and midday?"

"There is a place near the lake. Sometimes tourists can be there, foreigners who fish or men interested in the... in the rocks, yes?"

"Geologists?"

"Yes. Geologists. You can look at the rocks, too. Or walk by the water. At this season, nobody will ask questions. But first you can come into the town and drink coffee for the lake you must go to the intersection on the far side of Grimsstadir and then turn left for the main road to the bridge. It is perhaps three miles in all."

Bolan had finished dressing. The sky was lightening. It would soon be full daylight.

"We go now," the girl said. "I will show you the coffee place, then I must leave you." Suddenly she reached up and touched his face. "You are a strong man," she said. "Like Gunnar. I like a man that he should be strong and brave." Seeing Bolan's expression, she gave a little laugh. "You are not shocked? In my country we have a tradition a girl is not afraid to say if she likes a man."

"In your country?" The phrase had slipped out, Bolan thought, as though she, too, was a foreigner in Iceland.

"Don't you come from this part of the world then?" Erika evaded a direct answer. "It was a manner of speaking," she said.

"Come. We must be quick now."

She began walking toward the center of town.

Bolan was intrigued nevertheless.

"What about Gunnar?" he queried, hurrying to keep up with her. "Doesn't he mind when you... say that you like another man?"

"Why should he? Gunnar is a friend. We work together sometimes. Sometimes we may play."

Yeah, Bolan thought. But what's the name of the game? What business are these characters in?

Clearly there was nothing more to be gained from the blonde. He glanced at her face as they approached a small square where shopkeepers were already setting out sidewalk stalls of fruit and vegetables. Small nose, wide mouth, square, determined chin. Eyes that were very blue beneath the pale, cropped cap of hair. The kind of girl who knew exactly what she wanted. And would make damned sure that she got it.