Don Pendleton - Blood Heat Zero

When he did circle over the lock gates and make the far side, he kept his head turned away and down as if he was paying particular attention to the quays below. But his hands were clammy around the butt and barrel of the Skorpion machine pistol, the hairs pricked on the nape of his neck each time he passed near the shutters, and it was with a vast sigh of relief that he finally heard the signal to take shelter.

Heading for the entrance before the others came up the stairway, he ducked behind the stack of oil drums at the last minute and allowed them all to pass.

As soon as the dock was deserted, Bjornstrom was out of the control room and speeding along the gallery. He had vaulted the rail and clambered up along the weathered outcrops that were tiered above the opening to the cave before the first detonation.

Bolan was back in the control room, taping primed sticks of plastic among the operating levers, beneath the bench, in back of the computer console.

Screwing an inspection cover back in place, he saw through a window that Bjornstrom was spread-eagled over a slab of granite immediately above the channel leading in from the fjord. It was late morning now, and the sun must have dissipated the mist, because there was a bright glare on the water that reflected chevrons and crescents of light across the vaulted roof of the cavern.

From where he was, Bolan was unable to see clearly just what the Icelander was doing. He could not distinguish the slab of granite that had jammed across a gap and prevented the cliff from tumbling into the fjord the quartzite, shining with damp and alive with reflections, looked as solid as any mountain he had seen. Perhaps the fractures were more easily identifiable from outside.

Cautiously he emerged from the control room now the final charge for the dock gates.

Blast assaulted his eardrums. A puff of warm air followed the explosion, the loudest yet, and a shower of rock fragments clattered among the ironwork of the scaffolding. Splashes pitted the surface of the water below.

Several jagged pieces of quartzite whistled past the Executioner like tilde shrapnel.

He dodged momentarily behind the oil drums.

Bjornstrom appeared to be hard at work still. His left arm vanished into a crevice.

There was another, small explosion... and, almost at once, the whistles blew.

Bolan swore beneath his breath. The all-clear had taken him completely by surprise there had been far less time lag than usual. His fellow saboteur was crucified on the rock face. He couldn't possibly climb down and make the shelter of the drums before the Russians emerged from their refuge; not could it be safe to retreat the way they had come in the first time there were guards on the spur, and in any case he would be spotted from inside before he could edge out of sight around the corner of the arch.

Desperately Bolan glanced over his shoulder. He heard the sound of footsteps and voices coming from outside the doorway leading to the shelter. In a moment the workers would be flooding out and onto the stairway.

In the few seconds that remained there was only one thing for the Icelander to do and Bolan dared not raise his voice to suggest it.

But Bjornstrom realized the plight he was in. With a quick turn of the head to check that Bolan was still watching, he raised a hand in salute, let go his hold on the rock and dropped twenty feet into the water.

There was enough height to allow him to jackknife before he went in. His outstretched fingertips arrowed through the surface, and he disappeared with scarcely a splash to mark his passage.

By the time the Russians reached the gallery, his dark shape was lost among fronds of seaweed in the shadowy depths of the entrance, and the few ripples he had made on his way out were swallowed up in the interplay of light below the arch as the tide sucked and lapped its way into the basin.

For the second time Bolan sighed with relief. He lowered his head and shoulders behind the drums, waiting for work to resume before he continued his perilous impersonation.

Had Bjornstrom succeeded in placing his charge? Was the plastic in the best position for toppling the granite? There was no way he could tell. Bjornstrom would either have to swim back to the rocks where the raft was hidden or attempt to join Erika in the smaller cavern.

One thing was certain — the man who worked for the Norwegian secret service would not be able to sabotage the mine shaft and the elevator now.

So how best to use his own remaining charge? Bolan weighed the pros and cons. The lock gates or the elevator shaft?

He decided on the shaft. The odds against a successful attack on the gates increased with every second the dead guard could be missed at any time and that would put the entire place on general alert; to cripple the gates, it would be necessary to lodge the plastic explosive among the hinge mechanism or actually between them, and in either case that involved an underwater operation; if he was to dive, Bolan must discard the guard's uniform and that would hasten the chances of discovery; finally it was possible that the work force might break for lunch soon, and that meant no more whistle-stops.

This time he did not have to wait so long.

Checking that the two overseers in the hutch were still facing the dry-dock, he followed the last of the Russians through the doorway... instead of heading for the shelter, he dropped to his hands and knees, crawled past the steel shutters below window level and then ran for the warren of passageways beyond.

He chose the one leading directly away from the basin. It rose steeply upward and ended in a circular chamber from which several tunnels led off.

The highest and widest which had evidently been used for the transportation of plant from the elevator to the submarine pens was roughly hewed from the rock, supported every few yards by pit props and cross beams and dimly lit by low-power electric lamps. A current of cool air blew along it, which the warrior guessed must originate at the foot of the shaft.

He hurried along the tunnel, turned a corner and was faced with a T-junction.

Licking one finger and holding it up, he found that the draft came from the left. As he set off in that direction there was a dull concussion somewhere behind him, and his ears cracked momentarily as the pressure in the passageway altered.

A few yards farther on a second blast, a series of small detonations dimmed the lights.

Bolan figured he must still be almost two hundred yards from the mine shaft.

Before he was halfway there, he heard the faint shrilling of whistles. He would have to pull out all the stops if he was to plant his explosive before the risk of encountering one of the guards became unacceptable.

The elevator cage was at the pithead a diminutive plug blocking the light at the top of a vertical shaft stretching far up into the dark. The winching equipment, the huge counterweight and the arrangement of wire hawsers in the circular rock well at the bottom of the shaft could have been designed to operate a passenger elevator in some prehistoric subway station, Bolan thought with a smile.

But there was nothing prehistoric about the footsteps he could hear advancing far away in the maze of passageways near the dock basin.

Reaching into the neoprene pouch, he drew out the remaining two-stick delayed-action charge, checked that the watch was ticking and correctly set, and jumped lightly down into the elevator well.

Ten seconds later, he pulled his hand back from the underside of an inspection hatch with an exclamation of astonishment.

There was already a charge in place there time-fused, neatly bundled and taped securely in place.

Before he had time to think, a voice said softly behind him, "There is a saying in your country, I believe, that great minds think alike. It is good to find that this is true!"