Blood Heat Zero te-90

by Don Pendleton

  After that, the stream wider and slower now, there were bleak lowlands to cross, high ground to the east with the fifteen-hundred-foot smoking cone of Pristikluvatn, one of the island's many active volcanoes, and at last the division of the river into several branches that ran out into the great northern bay named the Axarfjordur.

  The trip took them two days.

  They passed beneath the bridge near the Russian concession exactly one week after Bolan had driven over it on his way from Akureyri to Egilsstadir.

  He looked at the surface workings a lot more closely this time.

  They crested a ridge that separated the steep-sided fjord from a smaller arm of the sea that pierced the indented coastline to the west. The narrow neck of land between these two inlets was blanked off by a ten-foot wall approached by a winding mountain track.

  "The gates are guarded by men with shotguns," Bjornstrom said, "and there are dog handlers with Doberman pinschers patrolling the perimeter."

  The ridge, isolated in this way as much as an island, was leased in its entirety to the Russians, he told the Executioner. The tin roofs of pithead buildings were half hidden by a swell of moorland, but the twin wheels of the colliery-style hoist on their iron pylons were clearly visible against the gray sky.

  "What exactly are they supposed to be mining?" Bolan asked.

  Bjornstrom shrugged. "Prospecting actually. Tin lodes, veins rich in other minerals, certain ores among the granites and quartzites that form the promontory. Uranium, for all I know. Enough, anyway, to make a believable reason for having surface plant, bore-sinking equipment, the pithead gear that you can see and a shaft with a cage."

  "And at the foot of the shaft?"

  "That is what we have to find out."

  "Any chance of scaling that cliff?" Bolan jerked his head toward the seamed rock face that lay between the coarse grass on top of the ridge and the deep water of the fjord.

  "It is possible, but guards patrol all the time. We better can make some entry through the caves."

  "Caves?"

  Bjornstrom cut the engine and allowed the raft to drift. "If I go farther, they may suspect. We inspect as far as the bridge, where the river becomes tidal."

  "You mentioned caves?"

  "Yes. This site is well chosen. By road, the nearest village is seven miles away. In a direct line, the nearest is Pvera, on the other side of the fjord." He pointed at the opposite cliff. Some way farther north, slate roofs and chimneys could be seen on the skyline. "But to get there by road is twice as far."

  "The caves!" Bolan insisted.

  The Icelander pointed seaward once more, this time below the ridge on which the concession was located. A grass-topped spur jutted out from the cliff and curled around toward them.

  "The spur is granite," he said. "It is weathered in blocks and cubes, which makes climbing easier. But there is also a basalt dike by the fault that separates the spur from the ridge, and that runs out underwater like a jetty."

  Bolan waited patiently.

  "Between these two," Bjornstrom said, "there are three caves. The openings above the surface are high enough to allow a rowing boat to enter at high water, a larger craft when the tide is low."

  "And you figure there may be a connection between these caves and the mine shaft?" At last Bolan permitted himself to show eagerness at the thought of something positive.

  "It is possible," Bjornstrom said "Dressed this way, we are believable as Water Board officials as far as the bridge. To go farther, unless we are fishing or in a coastguard cutter, could alert the guards above."

  "So we wait until dark?"

  "I think so. As you see, curving this way, that bluff cuts off the view of the caves from anyone across the fjord in Pvera. That could work for us, too. So I say we forget about being Water Board inspectors and go tonight, as ourselves, swimming, to see about those caves. Okay?"

  "You got it," Bolan said.

  * * *

  The water was cold as sin, black as a starless night in the south. It wrapped icy fingers around heart and lungs as if it would squeeze every vestige of life away, plastering the wet suits to their bodies so close that the insulating film of moisture was almost neutralized.

  Bolan led the way, swimming strongly in a modified Australian crawl that left scarcely a ripple on the dark surface of the fjord. They had paddled the raft silently to a diminutive creek two hundred yards upstream and left it behind a granite outcrop that rose from the water. On this initial recon they were equipped with flippers, face masks, snorkel tubes and electric lamps brow-strapped above the masks. A commando knife was the only weapon each man carried.

  They didn't need to use the lamps.

  Bolan was not surprised. During the afternoon, hidden among rocks a quarter of a mile away, they had heard unmistakable sounds of activity within the caves. And if there was work, there might be light.

  Noises carried clearly along the surface of the fjord, and the Executioner could distinguish the tapping of rock chisels, a scrape of metal, the noise of a distant compressor and even, from time to time, the swish of a concrete mixer. Once he thought he heard guttural commands.

  Then whistles blew and there was silence... followed by five small but distinct explosions.

  "Blasting," Bolan said. "Between the whistle and the detonation, they all take shelter someplace. It might be a good time to get in there."

  Bjornstrom nodded. "And find a place to hide before they come out again and start to work?"

  "Right. There has to be a physical connection between the bore they are sinking up top and those caves. If we can hear these noises, so can people from Pvera and boatmen in the fjord. So the Russians must have a plausible reason for blasting and whatever else they do at the foot of the mine shaft."

  "Galleries radiating out from there?" Bjornstrom suggested.

  "Yeah. But that can't be the real reason, or there'd be no need for them to try and eliminate guys like you and me. My guess is that it's the caves themselves are the target they're up to something big inside those caves that they want to keep secret and the mine shaft beyond them is just a cover, to account for the noise."

  "What do you mean, 'something big'?"

  "Beats me. I've been racking my brains for days trying to think up a believable reason. Now that I'm sure it's connected with the river and these caves, I'm as much in the dark as ever. Some kind of clandestine propaganda broadcasting unit? A KGB disaffection HQ? Antimissile detection? A military launchpad? None of those makes any sense at all. Not in caves. And certainly not in Iceland."

  "So okay, we find out more when we go in," Bjornstrom said.

  Before they started to swim, the sky darkened and rain pelted the fjord from the ocean. By the time they were halfway to the cave mouths it had changed to a sea mist a damp curtain of gray that rolled quickly across the wader, settling a thin layer of moisture on rock faces, distorting sounds and blotting out shapes on both sides of the inlet.

  They surfaced thirty yards offshore and stared at the cave mouths. The top of the cliff, which rose sheer from the fjord, was hidden in the mist. The far side of the fjord was invisible; there was no conceivable place where a lookout could be posted above or beside the caves.

  "We can take our time," Bjornstrom said. His In the gathering dusk a subdued radiance escaped from the largest of the three openings, which looked to be about forty feet wide and seven or eight high. One of the others was almost as far across but the roof was only just above the surface. The third was much smaller.

  Bolan pushed up his mask. "That could be the safest way in for us," he said, indicating the third cave. "Providing they interconnect." He swam nearer. The rock bordering the openings was weathered, cracked and split by frost, eroded by wind and salt and then worn smooth by millennia of waves and storms and spray. "I'm going on in and check the entrance," he murmured. "You stick around here as end stop, okay?"

  Bjornstrom nodded. Bolan readjusted his mask, dived beneath the surface and disappeared.
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br />   The Icelander swam around in circles for a few minutes to keep his circulation active. The remorseless pressure of the icy water numbed his fingers and toes, created an ache in the pit of his stomach. Finally, he, too, submerged and propelled himself underwater as far as the spur.

  He pulled himself up onto a granite shelf and investigated the state of the rock. As far as he could see in the waning light, an experienced climber could easily hoist himself up to a height of about twenty feet and from there, along a fissure splitting the age-old face, he could cross to the cliff directly above the caves.

  The quartzite there was seamed by a number of horizontal stratifications that formed narrow ledges above the openings, but whether or not there was any way of gaining the interior from these or whether that could be done unobserved he was in no position to see.

  The subdued light from the main cave was not reflected in the black water of the fjord, but the channel inside must have curved, or perhaps there was some trick of the light, for he could see nothing but a pale blur beyond the arch.

  An instant later he saw nothing at all. Silently from behind, a sinewy steel-hard forearm locked beneath his jaw, clamping his throat in a viselike grip. At the same time hard fingers probed the rubber helmet behind his ear, searching for the pressure point that would paralyze him.

  Bjornstrom struggled wildly, clawing at the forearm, striving to shake free of the hand clasped around the base of his skull. He gagged, choking for air.

  His feet scrabbled on the granite ledge; fragments of rock tore free and splashed into the water below.

  The darkness threatening to engulf him turned red. He felt the strength seep from his limbs... and then suddenly the iron grasp on his throat relaxed. His head was free. He heard a choking cry as the air wheezed back into his own tortured lungs, and he fell to the ground.

  Mack Bolan was standing above him, supporting the limp figure of his attacker. Bolan's knife had arrowed in between the man's teeth and penetrated the roof of his mouth, transfixing the lower part of the brain and killing him instantly.

  The Executioner withdrew the flat blade and tipped the body over the ledge into the water below before the blood cascading down the guy's gray combat fatigues stained the rock.

  "With luck he'll be washed clean before he's found," Bolan said quickly. "The palate wound will not register unless they're looking for it. The marks on the ledge here should indicate that he missed his footing in the fog, fell over and drowned." He pulled the Icelander to his feet and waved aside his thanks. "You weren't to know they'd post a guard out here in this kind of weather," he said. "Do you feel up to making a short recon trip? Underwater?"

  "Sure," Bjornstrom croaked, massaging his bruised throat. "What did you find?"

  "Well, the caves do connect. We can get to the main cavern through any of them. Also, the place is enormous inside there. Deep water, too. That main archway must go down at least forty feet below the surface. And there's a hell of a lot of work going on."

  "What kind of work?"

  "That's what we are going to find out," Bolan said. "Come back in with me and we'll check. We better get some idea of the geography of the place before the guard's absence is discovered."

  They slid back into the water and headed for the smallest of the arches.

  To Bjornstrom, an interminable time seemed to pass before Bolan signaled that it was safe to surface. They had navigated a curving channel perhaps seventy yards long and joined the main entry, where it opened out into an immense cavern.

  It was from this that the light reflected in the fjord had come. Now, treading water at the outer margin of this huge chamber hollowed from the rock, they could see under a blaze of arc lights the extent of the work that had already been secretly completed.

  What had once been an irregular underground basin had been widened and transformed into a rectangular dock bordered by concrete quays. Beyond this pool two giant lock gates with sluices blanked off a caisson crisscrossed with scaffolding on which an army of laborers worked. A drydock was evidently under construction.

  Electric wires and compressor tubes tangled the quay nearest the two intruders, and in the far depths of the cave the shafts of rock drills and boring equipment gleamed. Above these a railed gallery circling three parts of the cavern led to a glassed-in box that was clearly some sort of control room.

  Two men carrying submachine guns emerged from a passageway carved from the rock and began patrolling the gallery toward the entrance tunnel.

  Bolan touched the Icelander on the arm. They submerged and began swimming back along the main channel leading to the fjord.

  There was a lot more to check out but the Executioner had already seen enough to know that at last he held the final section of the puzzle in his mind.

  This was no underground base for radio misinformation, no simple KGB disaffection headquarters what he had been looking at were bombproof Russian submarine pens.

  The Russians were building a clandestine underwater naval station beneath the territory of a NATO country.

  13

  "For the new SSK-class minisubs," Bolan said. "There's space for two in that basin, and a third in the dry-dock."

  "Minisubs?" Bjornstrom objected. "You mean those two-man undersea motorboats the Italians developed in the Second World War?"

  "Hell, no. Mini in relation to the four— or five-thousand-ton nuclear maxis that are too easy to pinpoint with modern sonar and electronic detectors. The SSK's are 200-ton subs with a crew of only twelve, all-electric engines and a sea-to-sea strike capability of no more than half a dozen short-range nukes."

  "Harder to detect, though, than the nuclear-powered ships?"

  "Sure. They're silent, the heat emanation is minimal, they are fast and maneuverable as a pursuit plane."

  "Better than these so-called factory ships then, for monitoring all the NATO and other Western shipping in the North Atlantic?"

  "Uh-huh. Preying on them, too. Acting as a hidden strike force if the Soviets ever decide to unleash a hot war. But they do have one big disadvantage."

  Bjornstrom nodded. "The batteries."

  "Yeah. Prenuclear subs used electric engines for undersea work, diesels on the surface. The SSK's are too small to carry auxiliary engines and in any case it would louse up to their low profile, write them a bigger signature on the detector screens. But electric motors restrict them to a very short range each accumulator needs to be recharged every X miles or every so-many hours."

  "So from Russian bases, Murmansk, Archangel or even the Baltic, an SSK North Atlantic patrol is not a proposition?"

  "Right. It was a pretty smart idea, though, to use Iceland." Bolan shook his head in reluctant admiration. "Equidistant from Greenland, the Faroes, Spitsbergen and Norway. Smack in the center of the operations area! They could be in among any NATO concentration, anyplace, within a couple of hours. Even under the ice. And it saves them around a thousand miles each way!"

  "But the entry to these caves?" Bjornstrom looked dubious. They were sitting in the rubber raft, hidden behind the rocks, waiting for the pale gloom of the sub-Arctic night to establish itself.

  "A piece of cake," Bolan told him. "The fjord is long but it's also dark and deep, with a rock bottom and no sand to show up underwater craft in silhouette. An SSK could slip in from the open sea and make the whole journey submerged, including entry to the main cave through that drowned arch. It wouldn't need to surface until it was safely out of sight inside the basin."

  "Then they should be building generators in there as well as maintenance and repair facilities?"

  "Damn right, they should. Recharging those accumulators will be the most important part of the deal. My guess is that all the water-tapping you come across is not so much for the heating as for generator turbines. They won't want to siphon off too much current from the normal domestic power supply to the fake mine workings above. People might start to ask questions. So they aim to install their own hydroelectric plant below."

 
Bjornstrom was feeding shells into a clip destined for the magazine of his Ingram. "So what do we do?" he asked.

  "I have kind of a personal stake in this," Bolan said grimly. "We wage a two-man war and destroy the place. Blow it clear to hell."

  "We don't just report it to the government and let them handle it?"

  "Uh-huh. Like you said, that makes it a diplomatic issue. You got an international incident, violation of sovereignty. Imagine what a help that would be with the next round of SALT talks coming up! Hell, it would make the East-West situation more unstable than ever and kill any chance at all the talks have of reducing the arms racer. Whereas a nice quiet little private raid..." He left the sentence unfinished.

  Bjornstrom looked relieved. "I agree," he said. "If this base is destroyed anonymously, before it is complete, the Russians cannot complain because they are here building it illegally. And Iceland can say nothing because it will know nothing about it."

  "Right," Bolan said. "Nobody kicks up hell if a place that doesn't officially exist is wiped out." He smiled. "So all we have to do now is find ourselves a stack of explosives. You got any quarries around here?"

  "I do not think that will be necessary," the Icelander said. He held up his hand. "Listen."

  Faintly, approaching from the direction of the village on the far side of the fjord, they could hear the creak of rowlocks.

  Soon a small boat materialized out of the gloom. A single figure in a frogman suit stowed the oars as the dinghy glided in among the rocks. Then the new arrival leaped nimbly ashore with a canvas satchel. Even in the mist, Bolan could see it was the woman, Erika.