Don Pendleton - Blood Heat Zero

"I shall give the orders relating to her," he said firmly. "We work. We are a team. She is trained in this kind of operation. Besides, it is safer and more efficient and it will cut the time we have to be inside the caves by thirty percent."

This Bolan could not deny. They agreed, then, that Erika, wearing her rubber dry-suit with the oiled silk pouch strapped to her waist, would swim in via the smallest of the caves and remain in the second chamber, from which she would attend to the three generator turbines and their supply pipes plus the transformer and switchboard, which she could approach from the rear.

Wet-suited and carrying one neoprene sack each, Bolan and the Icelander would handle the rest.

Bjornstrom, because he was familiar with the local rock formations, was to place the big charge destined to block the entrance and then run through the gallery to sabotage the mine shaft.

Bolan reserved for himself the operating gear and electronics in the control room. He was also to place the vital charge that would damage the lock gates and, if it was successful, let water into the dry-dock and flood the construction chamber.

"And the time lag?" Bjornstrom asked.

Bolan fingered his jaw. "We have to wind and set the watches before we leave," he said slowly. "Allow a half hour to swim as far as the caves and another to make it inside. Then we'll need to wait out at least three work stoppages before we get the stuff in place. They start the first shift at seven. Suppose they're ready to blow their first charge on the rock face around eight. Could be we won't all be clear of the place before eleven. I'd say four o'clock in the afternoon would be a good time to blow."

"Four, three, two, one, twelve, eleven..." Bjornstrom counted off the hours on his fingers. "So if we wrap up all the preparations and leave here for the caves at 6:00 A.M., we should allow a ten-hour countdown?"

Bolan nodded. "That should give us plenty of time a big enough margin to leave the whole area before anyone starts asking awkward questions about foreigners."

"The pins are inserted between eleven and twelve on the watch faces," Erika said. "So working backward from there we must set the hour hands between one and two o'clock when we wind them?"

"That's my girl!" Bolan said without thinking. And intercepted a look from Erika of such frank approval that he felt embarrassed. "Just a manner of speaking," he mumbled with a smile.

She gazed straight into his eyes. "It could be a manner of action," she said.

Bolan shifted uncomfortably and shot a sideways glance at Bjornstrom.

"Gunner and I are not lovers," Erika said. "He has a wife and child in Eskifjordur, on the east coast."

Bjornstrom nodded and grinned. "We are just good friends," he agreed. "We work together."

Slightly unnerved by this Nordic frankness, Bolan sought refuge in another cliche, a military one this time, just to play safe. "I think it's time we synchronized our watches," he said gruffly.

They made the caves without incident, and Erika dived beneath the surface to swim in via the smallest opening. It was a cold morning, with mist still blanketing the cliff tops, but a bright halo glaring through the dun overcast suggested that the sun might break through later.

Bolan and the Icelander were obliged to keep a very low profile approaching the main cavern, because there were now four hitmen posted on the spur, two of them continually scanning the openings and the cliff face above. Finally, taking advantage of the fact that the mist lay thickest on the surface of the fjord, they floated facedown and allowed themselves to be carried through by the incoming tide.

After that it was a matter of waiting, half submerged, under the arch until the first whistle blew.

Once the work force had disappeared, they hauled themselves up onto the dock and made for the spiral stairway that led to the gallery and control room.

From the top of the stairs, Bolan looked through to the smaller chamber and saw Erika, shining in her black frogman gear, emerge from the water by the rowboat and hurry up the slipway.

She turned, saw him and gave a quick thumbs-up before vanishing through the opening that gave onto the powerhouse cave and the generators.

Bolan and his companion checked out the routes they would have to take to their separate targets and then returned to the empty control room.

Soon after the workers returned to the chamber, whistles blew again in the cavern outside.

Hastily they shamed themselves out of sight beneath the UHF radio bench.

"Straight down to the end of the gallery and up onto your rock site once they make the shelter," Bolan whispered.

They heard voices and the clang of feet on the iron stairs. A silence.

Then, over the loudspeakers in Russian, came, "What the hell have you been doing? Hurry, you fool! No, it's too late to forget the shelter you'll have to take cover in the control room."

Bolan and Bjornstrom froze. They wouldn't be able to place any charges during this stoppage! Heavy footsteps thumped along the gallery. A man hurried into the control room, panting. It was the guard who had been on the far side of the cavern. His boots gleamed six inches from Bolan's head.

Two muffed explosions heavier than any they had heard before shook the floor and rocked the bench above them.

Somewhere above the transmitter chassis, glass chattered momentarily.

They held their breath. A third report, and then the whistles again.

A cigarette butt dropped to the floor beside the bench and a heel swiveled to grind it out. The acrid odor of cheap tobacco and wet ash blew in under the bench.

Bjornstrom sneezed.

There was a startled exclamation as the guard bent down. Gray eyes stared unbelievingly at the two saboteurs.

Hands scrabbled for the pistol grip of the Skorpion.

Bolan reached out and grabbed the guard's ears, savagely jerking the man's head forward. At the same time Bjornstrom rolled out from beneath the bench, seized the boots and swept the Russian's feet from under him. The guard crashed facedown to the floor.

The noise was lost in the sounds of workers returning to the work project.

Bolan and the Icelander were on top of the guy before he could even cry out.

Bjornstrom pulled off his helmet and jammed it back to front over the man's head, masking his face. At the same time Bolan's hand clamped over his mouth and jaw. Desperately trying to drag in air, the guard succeeded only in plastering the suffocating rubber device more firmly against his nostrils.

He was a strong man, threshing wildly from side to side on the concrete, but now Bjornstrom was kneeling on his biceps, pinning both arms, and the Executioner had thrown the whole weight of his body across the legs, heaving up and down as the knees jerked spasmodically.

Bjornstrom's hands went around the guard's throat and squeezed. The muffed cries behind the neoprene mask lapsed into a gurgle that rapidly diminished.

It took less than a minute for oxygen deprivation to sap the energy from the strangled man's fluttering muscles, another fifty-five seconds before the frantic thumping of the heart was stilled.

They rolled the body under the bench.

Bolan rubbed a forearm across his brow.

He was sweating. "I hated to do that," he whispered, "but sometimes there's no other way."

It was almost an hour before the whistles sounded again.

Bolan in the meantime had stripped jackboots, combat fatigues and miner's helmet from the dead man, and pulled them on over his wet suit. Fortunately the guard had been as tall as the Executioner and much wider.

For those fifty-plus dry-throated and agonizing minutes, Bolan patrolled the gallery. As much of the time as he believably could, he spent near the control room, out of sight of the two overseers in their steel-shuttered cubbyhole.