It started sooner than Bolan expected... and not the way he planned.
Bjornstrom had made it to the shack, and he was two-thirds of the way across the sunlit strip with Erika when he saw with horror that the elevator gate was still open.
Whatever else happened it was vital that nobody suspected they had been in the caverns, nobody discovered the dead guards below, nobody started any kind of investigation before those charges went off.
The open grille was a direct giveaway.
Bolan decided it was worth the risk.
He would close the grille as far as he could without actually engaging the noisy latch.
He turned to retrace his steps. As the ball of his foot swiveled, a pebble of quartzite crunched loudly.
Turning his ankle, he stumbled and to save himself falling, grabbed instinctively at Erika. His fingers closed around the wrist that had been burned while she was unconscious, and despite herself she gave a cry of pain.
Heads turned along the assembled ranks of Russians. Antonin jerked to attention and stared toward the pithead. For one frozen moment the actors in the drama formed a silent tableau the Russians astonished, Antonin with the loud-hailer halfway to his mouth, the woman and the helmeted, black-suited intruders, guns in hand, facing the elevator shaft.
The scene exploded into action.
Antonin shouted orders. The guards leaped for their machine pistols, stacked nearly at one side of the parade. Workers fanned out to give them a clear field of fire.
Bolan, figuring that his attitude could mislead the Russians into thinking he and his companions were making for the elevator instead of away from it, sprang back as though he had just opened the grille. And then whirled to race with the woman for the corner of the shack.
"Keep them away from the shaft!" Antonin roared through his bullhorn. "I want them alive if possible, but they're not to make that elevator."
First objective gained, Bolan thought. He dropped down behind a bank of loose dirt in back of the winding-gear shack and brought the Heckler and Koch assault rifle to his shoulder. Erika was kneeling in the shadow cast by the wooden shack, the Kalashnikov aimed toward the huts; Bjornstrom covered the open ground between the huts and the HQ building.
The guards opened fire. From between the huts, behind the baggage trolley, on either side of the platform, Skorpions spat flame. The 700 rpm death stream ripped wood splinters from the walls of the shack and whined off the massive iron spars of the gantry.
Bolan coaxed telling bursts from his G-11, hearing over the deadly rasp of the assault rifle's backfire the deeper reports of Erika's AKM.
A guard fell out from behind the trolley, rolled over in the dust and lay still. Another, caught in the open space between the platform and the huts, sat down abruptly with a hand clasped to his shoulder and blood bubbling between his fingers. The girl downed a man foolish enough to attempt a run between two of the huts.
Antonin and the admiral had disappeared.
The unarmed workers and their overseers were racing for the headquarters block. Each man dashed up the steps and reappeared almost at once with an AKM at port arms.
Bjornstrom dropped several with the silenced Ingram, but the intensity of fire from the guards allowed him only to take rapid snap shots and the final effect was minimal.
With military precision one group circled behind the overseer's office and the rest made for the brow of the hill. Evidently they had orders to outflank Bolan and his companions and attack from the rear.
Guards fired now from the windows of the sleeping quarters. The ironwork of the gantry reverberated with the impact of wasted rounds.
Bolan raked the facades with a lethal stream of the tiny G-11 projectiles. Over the clamor of broken glass he yelled at the Icelander, "Gunner, try one of the grenades!"
Bjornstrom nodded. His arm swung back. The plastic flesh-shredder arced over the hell ground between the shack and the HQ block to explode with a concussive flash beside the steps. Men fell left and right; a flaming bundle threshed screaming in the doorway.
But the full effect came milliseconds later three thirtykilo cylinders of propane gas, ranged outside the block to fuel cooking and heating plant, were blown away from their connecting hoses and erupted with a shattering roar. The explosion smashed a hole in the side of the building and set fire to the interior.
A huge fireball blazed upward, drawing after it a column of black smoke.
From behind the row of huts, Antonin's voice, shaking with fury, screamed through the bullhorn, "Azimov, Streletzin take the Swidnik and head off this damned geologist and his brats. Tell him there was a regrettable accident at the pithead. Tell him anything, but keep the fools away. After that fly back and help us liquidate these terrorists."
Bolan looked across at Bjornstrom and Erika. He held up a thumb. Second objective gained. Following orders keep the Russians occupied long enough to rule out any checkup of the underground base.
From behind the sheds housing the excavation machinery they heard the whine of a jet engine and then a whir of rotors. The chopper rose into sight, angled through the smoke and flames pouring through the roof of the HQ block and headed for the gates.
Bolan half rose, fired a short burst to discourage any snipers and dashed across to join Bjornstrom and Erika behind the shack. Conserving the remaining G-11 rounds for their eventual getaway, he unleathered Big Thunder. "What we do now..." he began.
Erika screamed a warning.
Bolan whirled. Antonin was standing in the open doorway of the shack. The KGB chief's features were twisted into a manic snarl that was half rage and half triumph. The Tokarev TT-33 in his right hand was aimed point-blank at the Executioner's chest.
Three shots hammered out in a single ragged detonation.
Bolan never knew whether or not it was deliberate, but Gunnar Bjornstrom, hurling himself forward with the Beretta, threw himself into Antonin's path and took the heavy bullets otherwise intended for Bolan.
At the same time Big Thunder blasted a fist-sized hole through the Russian's sternum, and a single round from Erika's AKM sent a 7.62 mm steeljacket to core his throat.
Antonin died on his feet. He collapsed backward, and the last spurts of his blood turned brown in the dust.
Bolan was bending over the fallen Icelander. "We've got to get him out," he rapped. "Help me carry him to the parking lot."
Behind the nearest vehicle Erika fell to her knees and held Bjornstrom's head in her hands.
"How bad is it?" Bolan asked, firing the AutoMag toward the gantry to keep Russian heads down.
"Bad. Below the right shoulder," she said. "it could be a lung." She held the punctured rubber away from the injured man's flesh. "The suit's filling with blood; I can't stop the flow."
Bolan unwound the makeshift bandage from his arm. The bleeding from the gash had stopped. "Make a pad of that and jam it inside the suit," he said.
Bjornstrom was trying to speak.
Bright bubbles of blood foamed at the corner of his mouth as his lips moved.
"No good," he whispered. "I cannot make it. Leave me here."
Bolan shook his head. "Take it easy, friend," he said. "We're getting you out of here. In a private ambulance, too!" He raked a glance along the line of parked vehicles.
With a single exception all of them Zastavas, Skodas, a Moskvitch limo and a Fiat were parked nose into the bank. The odd man out, an open, jeep-like Pobeda utility, faced the winding dirt road that snaked down the undulating landscape toward the gates.
Bolan vaulted into the driving seat as Erika lowered Bjornstrom as gently as she could into the rear.
No keys hung from the ignition; in fact, there was no ignition switch visible. Bolan glanced swiftly over the dials and tumblers. Nothing. He looked down and saw a push button on the floor behind the central shift lever. He jammed his thumb down on it.