Fortunately the tide was now rising.
The inward flow of seawater meeting the current of the Jokulsa a Fjollum created ripples on the shadowed side of the fjord and a constant, shifting glimmer of sunlight beyond.
Each of them was hampered in his movements, Bolan with the waterproof Heckler and Koch G-11 strapped across his chest, the Icelander by the neoprene sack protecting his Ingram and two handguns. In addition, each stroke had to be made cautiously, the breath drawn evenly and slowly when the U-shaped tube broke surface and the ball float dropped to let in air.
It was almost two o'clock before they arrived at the mouth of the smallest cave.
They surfaced still in the shelter of the low rock arch and trod water, staring into the lit interior of the small cavern.
The rowboat had been pulled out of the water and up to the top of the slipway. The only other difference from their previous visit was that now the entry to the generator cave and each of the passageways branching off the quay framed a guard with a Skorpion machine pistol.
Over the hum of turbines the two men could hear the familiar sounds of drills, compressors and concrete mixers. Work was evidently continuing on the rock faces around and behind the caisson.
From time to time an overseer shouted an order, but the noise was mainly mechanical. The guards did not patrol. They remained motionless at their posts.
Clinging to the rough walls just outside the pool of light, the roof of the arch low above their heads with the rising tide, the two freedom fighters waited for the whistle to blow. Would the KGB hardmen barring their way go to the shelter with the others?
No whistle.
Thirty-five minutes passed.
Bolan and his companion were numbed with cold, their circulation sluggish through lack of activity. Finally the Executioner touched Bjornstrom on the arm and jerked his head toward the entrance.
They submerged again, swam out below the cliff and dived in once more via the center arch, surfacing where the channel curved just before it joined the main cavern.
The scene was familiar workers swarming over the scaffolding above the construction site, overseers stalking this way and that, electric cables and compressor tubes snaking over the quays beneath the blazing arcs.
Six guards stood on the gallery.
Three men were posted on the far side, staring down into the water. One was in front of the control room, another by the stack of drums and the last outside the hut from which the blasting was controlled. The air was heavy with the stink of fuel oil spilled from drums punctured during the morning shoot-out.
And still no whistle blew.
Bolan floated to the far side of the tunnel, from where he could steal an upward glance at the hut.
Behind the steel shutters the brightly lit shack was empty.
He had been right no blasting this afternoon.
He flicked a glance at his watch. The luminous digits told him that it was a quarter to three.
Fifteen minutes before Erika came to, helpless in the hands of KGB torturers.
Bolan had no illusions about what would happen to her if he didn't get there first.
"Attention! Attention!" The amplified voice rasped around the caverns from the PA speakers in Russian. "Operation Crystal. Overseers and work force are to return to surface immediately for briefing on simulated mining activity in upper gallery. Brosolov, Rott, Shepelev, Brodsky, Korsun and Radin are to remain below on constant patrol. The remainder of the guards to the pithead."
"Wising them up on the routine to be followed when the prof and his college kids arrive," Bolan whispered. "This is our only chance."
With no more than six guards, and those continually on the move, he was confident that he could blast his way through to the shaft. Yeah, Brosolov, Rott and their fellow thugs were going to be real sorry they didn't make the surface with the others.
"We'll wait to see how they deploy," he murmured to Bjornstrom. "And take three each once they separate."
"We have very little time left." Bjornstrom's face was creased with anxiety. "Erika..."
"I know. But a slug doesn't waste time making it from muzzle to target," the warrior reassured him grimly.
The sounds of work ceased.
Compressors fell silent. When the workers and overseers had trooped away to the elevator, the guards left behind started to patrol. Two pairs of boots clattered down the iron stairway. One man remained up on the far side of the gallery. Bolan reckoned that the others must still be around the smaller basin in the other cave.
Beckoning Bjornstrom to follow, the Executioner swam quickly through into the dock. Pulling himself up onto the quayside, he shook drops of water from the streamlined casing of the G-11 and sprinted for the lock gates at the inner end of the basin. The Icelander sidled through the arch separating the two chambers.
Bolan had been seen. There was a shout from the gallery. He vaulted the nearest of the gates and crouched on the catwalk, crossing it as a fusillade ripped out from the gallery and splatted against the steel casing.
Bolan planted his elbows on the flange that topped the gate, then swung up the caseless assault rifle, squinted through the optical handle sight and triggered a 3-round 90 millisecond burst at the KGB goon before he could fire again.
The three reports coughed out as a single snarling bark.
A trio of pint-size death bringers cored through both of the Russian's hands, jerking the Skorpion upward before they slammed on to pierce his heart. Death tightened his trigger finger in the instant that he was hurled backward against the rock wall by the manic force of the tiny slugs, spraying the contents of the machine pistol's magazine roofward to shatter one of the batteries of arc lights.
Reflectors, fragments of aluminum casing and broken glass showered down into the water. At the same time Bolan heard two much heavier splashes from the direction of the inner basin.
Bjornstrom, now using a MAC suppressor on his Ingram, must have profited from the silencing facility to down two more of the opposition.
Three down, three up.
The pair who had thumped down the spiral stairway must by now have located Bolan the short burst from his G-11 had echoed from wall to wall of the cavern complex but there could be no doubt where it originated.
The warrior decided to draw their fire. He would give them something to shoot at. He raced to the far end of the catwalk and leaped up among the scaffolding above the caisson.
Slugs screamed off the metal stays and smashed into the rock beyond as first one Skorpion, then another, blazed out murderous volleys.
Bolan was ready. The muzzle-flashes had flickered from a patch of shadow beneath the arch separating the two basins. He fired from the hip, stitching together the two pools of light with hellfire thread.
The figure-eight death stream seamed the two guards.
They caromed off the wall and slumped sideways, one into each pool of light.
The far one, his chest burst open like a sausage under a grill, fell near the edge of the walkway linking the two caves. Blood bubbled out from beneath him, flowed over the stone lip and clouded the water below.
The second man, illuminated by the light in the main cavern, was still moving. An arm, perforated by splinters of bone, twitched. Splayed fingers reached for the fallen Skorpion.
The face, mouth open and eyes crazed, filled the eyepiece of Bolan's optical sight with hate. He coaxed another miniburst from the G-11 and transformed it into a gory pulp.
Where was the sixth man?
The sound of running footsteps pounded the gallery. The guy shot into view from one of the tunnels opening off the cave and dashed for the one that led to the shelter and the steel-shuttered hut from which the blasting was directed.