"You won't believe this, but I am asking myself exactly the same questions," Bolan said.
"But you, too, no answers?"
"Not yet, my friend. But I will get answers."
Bjornstrom lowered the Ingram and held out his hand. "Is good. Is very good. Maybe we better can work together then?"
"Suits me," Bolan said, taking the man's powerful grasp. The soldier remained skeptical about the story of a private citizen's fact-finding crusade. But the truth could wait, instinctively he trusted this big man, and the Executioner always backed his own hunches. "But I have to tell you," he added, "I found out nothing so far. You do any better, working upstream?"
"A little." Bjornstrom shrugged again. "They are using the hot water from beneath the ice; they tap the supply in their own pipes and again from the installation here."
"Here?" Bolan stared at the pump house. It was about twice the size of a beach cabin, a flat-roofed, windowless rectangle with a louvered metal door secured by a padlock and chain. From inside, he could hear a mechanical whine over the roar of tumbling water. "How come?" he asked.
"I show you." Bjornstrom led the way around the catwalk to the rear of the building. Three pipes emerged from a rocky bank to pierce the wall below the catwalk. Two of them were large-bore aluminum-based tubes eighteen inches in diameter; the third, half hidden beneath them, was much smaller. "That one, the plastic, the Russians have placed." Bjornstrom indicated the smaller pipe. "She stays with the others all the way to the booster station at Grimsstadir. Then they take her in a different direction, toward the estuary."
"You're saying they secretly laid down?.." Bolan shook his head. "I don't get it. Surely this installation is government property."
Bjornstrom nodded.
"Well, don't they check it out? Don't they make inspections from time to time? I mean won't someone get wise to that third pipe?"
"There is nothing to check," the Icelander said. "The turbines are water driven. The pipe does not show from the air. Maybe once in two years someone comes past; but maybe that man is paid by the Russians not to see that third pipe. Unless a fault operates some warning light at the center there is no reason for an inspection."
Bolan looked dubious. "You mean they pipe hot water all that way? Over one hundred miles? That's crazy. I mean the heat loss..." He shook his head again.
"The Icelanders are ingenious," Bjornstrom said, smiling. "There are many volcanoes beneath the ground, not just at Vatnajokull; many geysers, many hot springs. All the time they are adding more. To keep up the temperature, for the towns and villages. You know?"
"Why would the Russians need it?"
"Like us, to keep warm maybe. To save putting in expensive plant, to save oil. We are almost at Arctic Circle. It is very cold where they work below sea."
"Below sea?"
"But yes. Well, below the water in the fjord anyway."
"They have underwater workings on that mining concession?"
"Yes. But I do not think it is just for mining."
"Right," Bolan said. "I figure the mining routine strictly for a front. But a front for what?"
"This is what I wish to find out."
"You got any ideas?"
"Not so far. From the water there is only cliffs to see, and it is not possible to get inside the concession. They have guards and a wire fence. Also only Russians work there; there are no local laborers employed. In any case, I think the real work will not be showing above ground."
"I guess not. Everything on this deal centers around water the glacier, the river, this goddamn pipe. And now you say the workings are below sea level, too. What the hell can they be doing?"
Bjornstrom was about to reply when suddenly he held up a hand in warning.
In the distance, over the roar of water they could hear the rotor whine of a jet helicopter. "I think maybe it would be good if we are hiding just now," he said.
Bolan was moving before Bjornstrom finished speaking.
They vaulted the rail and flattened themselves against the wall beneath the catwalk.
The chopper was flying very low. It was a WSK Swidnik recon helicopter. The sliding panel on the port side of the Plexiglas bubble was locked back. A gunner cradling a SMG stood braced in the opening, scanning the terrain below.
Beyond him, they could see the pilot hunched over his controls. Both wore anonymous gray combat fatigues, like the hardcases who had previously tried to eliminate the Executioner.
The engine roar crescendoed and then began to fade as the Swidnik passed overhead, following the course of the river.
"I guess they will fly as far as the outpost you smashed," Bjornstrom said, "and then return, trying to locate the man who did that."
"Could be." Bolan nodded. "They'll certainly be wise to the fact it's a no-go situation up there. The radio's dead. But, like you say, they'll probably check there first."
They were both wrong.
Beneath the catwalk they were hidden from a plane approaching from the north, and invisible when it was overhead. But the platform was not wide enough to hide them from a southern approach or from anyone heading south who looked back over his shoulder.
The Russian with the subgun looked over his shoulder.
His head ducked back inside the Plexiglas blister. The chopper hung on its blades in a tight U-turn and flew back downstream.
Bolan was already waist deep in water beneath the ledge, groping inside the kayak for his weapons.
Bjornstrom dodged around the corner of the pump house. The helicopter sideslipped to keep him in view, lost height, then hovered to allow the guy with the SMG to line up on the Icelander below.
That was the pilot's mistake.
The gunner sprayed hot lead. Chips of concrete flew from the pump-house wall. The slugs gouged long splinters of wood from the planking above Bjornstrom's head. White water jetted high into the air as one of the pipes was drilled. But Bjornstrom, standing unafraid among the death hail, had already raised the muzzle of his Ingram.
Gritting his teeth, he held the jackhammering machine pistol on full-auto until the 30-round magazine emptied itself.
He did not aim at the Russian, but at the rotors above him, allowing the natural muzzle climb of the gun's incredible 1200 rpm firing rate to rake the entire diameter of the whirling arc.
Encountering a relentless stream of 9 mm parabellums, the effect was as if the rotors had slammed into a solid iron bar. The blades sheared, sending fragments spinning all over the sky.
The drive shaft, freed of load, screamed up the scale. The helicopter lurched onto its side and fell.
Spilled from the open-cabin, the guy with the gun hurtled out of the aircraft. He landed on a rock in the middle of the rapid, his body split open like a slaughtered animal.
White water whisked his gun away.
On the far bank, the Swidnik hit the ground with a shattering crash, bursting instantly into a blazing fireball as fuel spilled over the hot jet engine.
From the flame-tinged smoke that billowed upward, astonishingly, the figure of the pilot emerged. He was staggering. Blood streamed from a cut above his eye. But the eye itself malevolently glaring was fixed steadily on the pump house across the river. And the Tokarev pistol in his hand was aimed directly at Bjornstrom.
With an empty magazine and no refill, the Icelander was helpless, a perfect target against the white wall below the catwalk.
"Dive!" Bolan yelled, thrusting his way through the water, speeding toward the center of the stream.
Bjornstrom flattened himself below the railing as the pilot fired.
Coppergacketed scorchers screamed across the rapid and ricocheted off the platform. In the same movement the Russian swung the Tokarev toward Bolan.