Bolan's field of fire was obscured by the scaffolding. From where he was he didn't have a hope of getting back up to the gallery in time.
"Gunner!" he yelled. "The radio, the phone! Stop him before he..." The words died in his mouth.
Bjornstrom had appeared in another of the rock openings. He took in the scene at a glance, raced halfway along the gallery... and stopped dead.
Through the slats of the shutters, he could see the guard grabbing a handset hooked to an instrument fixed on the wall. Whatever happened, the Norwegian knew that the Russians on the surface must not be warned that anything was wrong below.
Without the element of surprise their plan was useless and they would be dead before they got anywhere near Erika.
Bjornstrom had one of the handguns it was Bolan's AutoMag in his fist. He took a snap sight and fired.
The report of the wildcat .44-caliber shell was deafening. And the force of the recoil took the Icelander off guard. He miscalculated the rise, and the slug caught the edge of a steel slat high up the window and whined off into the darkness of the roof. Glass tinkled to the floor.
The guard dropped the receiver and snatched his machine pistol from a desk beside the window. Before he raised the barrel, Bjornstrom fired again. This time his aim was better.
The 240 grain hollowpoint caught the man full in the throat.
For a heart-stopping moment, as the Russian's mouth opened in astonishment, a scarlet flower bloomed horribly against the whiteness of his skin. Then he toppled to the floor spewing blood, his head almost severed from his body.
Bolan and Bjornstrom arrived at the door of the hut at the same time. The Executioner saw that the telephone handset was still swinging at the end of its lead. He picked it up and hooked it gently back on its cradle.
The machine, one of the few outdated devices in the Russian base, was one of those with a hand-cranked generator, which rang a bell at the other end of the line like an army field telephone.
"Did you get him before he turned the handle?" Bolan asked urgently.
Bjornstrom nodded.
The warrior breathed a sigh of relief. No listening gear would have been alerted on the surface.
"There's no service stairway," he said lightly. "We'll take the elevator to the top floor'"
19
The elevator cage was wide enough to take three jeeps side by side. It was closed by a hand-operated latticework grille that ran noisily on rollers.
As it rose into the darkness from the brightly lit underground chamber, Bolan could imagine the big wheel at the pithead turning. Would there be guards alerted up there on the surface, waiting to move them down the moment they made ground level? Had any of the Russians noticed when they brought the cage creaking down five minutes ago?
The Executioner thought not.
It was no more than a hunch, but it was based on solid reasoning.
The relayed announcement had ordered the work force back to the surface for "briefing on simulated mining activity." The students were due in half an hour. It was likely, therefore, that all available personnel would be required at the briefing, to make sure they knew what they were supposed to do during the conducted tour. Also, it was unlikely during this period that anyone would return to the cavern; because of this, there was a good chance there would be nobody at the top of the shaft to check whether the elevator was up or down. Since the concession was protected on three sides by sheer cliffs, and on the fourth by a wall patrolled by armed men, there was no need to post a guard there.
But it was only a hunch. And there was a chance. In any case there was nothing else he could do. And a fighter should always be prepared to back his own hunches, right?
There were oil drums in back of the elevator cage. Replacements, maybe, for those punctured this morning, which nobody'd had time to shift?
Bolan and the Icelander squatted behind them. Bjornstrom held the silenced Ingram, Bolan the G-ll. Each carried one of the handguns from the neoprene pouch in waterproof shoulder rigs Bolan this time with Big Thunder, Bjornstrom toting his Beretta.
The elevator jolted to a halt.
Light flooded through the grille. The two men crouched, weapons ready.
Inside the cage, only their quiet breathing broke the silence. Outside, sunlight glinted off a baggage trolley loaded with flat pans of yellowish ore, and from corrugated iron roofing.
But there were no KGB guards waiting on the packed earth surrounding the shaft. A row of huts in front appeared to be deserted, and the cars and trucks ranged behind in a lot excavated from the hillside were all empty. Bolan's hunch had paid off nobody had seen the elevator descend, then return.
He rose, stole quietly to the grille, held up his hand. They could hear a voice, amplified, speaking in Russian.
It seemed to come from the slope of hillside below the huts.
"It is essential," the speaker emphasized, "that what you are doing appears to be a routine, something you are used to doing. Groups A and D therefore will be sinking exploratory holes farther out on the headland; Group C will list analyzed samples of the cores they have brought up; Group E will be working the upper trial gallery and Group B will remain with myself and the Comrade Admiral, supervising and acting as interpreters."
Bolan frowned. The voice was familiar. It stirred an echo in, his memory. But like the face of the professor in the tavern, he could not place it. He eased up the catch of the grille. There was a heavy metallic click. Very slowly he began to drag back the iron gate. The wheels on their runway shrilled protestingly as the latticework shivered.
"Most vital of all is the shaft," the voice was saying. "We cannot hide the fact that we have sunk a shaft the pithead gear spells that out for everybody. We shall therefore make a point of showing them that shaft. But we shall conceal the details of its depth. So far as they are concerned it goes no deeper than the lower trial gallery. The elevator is on no account to drop below that level. There is enough there and above to convince them that we are doing what we claim to do. They must not know the full extent of the workings; the fact that we have established a connection between the shaft and the caves is to remain a total secret."
Bolan hauled the gate open another few inches. The opening was now wide enough to allow them through.
Cautiously he peered out. On the grassy slope below the huts, engineers, laborers, overseers and guards were drawn up in front of a raised wooden platform. On it stood a tall, lean man in the uniform of a Soviet admiral. Beside him, addressing the Russians through a bullhorn, was a heavyset man with a shaven skull.
Bolan caught his breath. "Now I've seen it all," he muttered.
"What is it?" Bjornstrom's voice was a whisper.
"That man. His name is Antonin. A KGB colonel. He was one of the top brass, ruthless and cruel. Comrade Antonin and I are old enemies. The fact that he's here makes it'll the more urgent to spring Erika."
"How do we know ?"
Bolan laid a finger to his lips. He was scanning the line of huts and the terrain immediately beyond. The huts were clearly sleeping quarters. Behind them rose taller structures sheds full of excavation equipment, a rock crusher, a glass-roofed mineralogical laboratory. Higher up the slope a wooden mess hall stood by what looked like a headquarters block.
And behind the gantry, half hidden by the shack housing the pithead machinery, a square brick building with the legend in Russian above the door Chief Overseer. A single guard with a Kalashnikov AKM stood outside at the top of a short flight of steps.
"That's where she is," Bolan murmured.
"Are you certain?"
"Damn right I am. They're putting on a show. Everyone's being told the role they have to play. Only one guy's left to block a doorway. Why would he be there if there wasn't a prisoner inside?"