Right now the number-one priority was survival.
The AutoMag possessed greater stopping power, but in these conditions, with distances and deflections as yet unknown, the Beretta's longer range and marginally greater accuracy outweighed Big Thunder's skull-busting impact.
Thumbing open the clasps of the satchel, Bolan withdrew the Italian death bringer and eased off the safety.
He couldn't believe that the tiny click was audible over the roaring rush of water, but a blinding light blazed instantly to life, swung across the turbulent current and homed in on the kayak. The beam, more powerful than his own, had lanced out as he had guessed from the far side of the bend, exposing him against the rock in the light's pitiless glare.
The warrior could deal with one or more snipers, but not spotlit as vulnerably as an insect pinned to a board. He triggered off a 3-shot burst that smashed the light. At the same time he relaxed his grip on the rock and shoved the kayak violently out into midstream.
The assassin fired again, a hail of lead that chiseled splinters from the rock and stung Bolan's face as the craft spun once, twice, and then whirled away into the blackness.
Bolan knew now he was facing an assault rifle, fashioned for single shot or full-auto use.
He allowed the kayak to ground on the inside of the bend, downstream from the gunner now but still on the opposite bank. Snapping off the spray skirt, he wedged the boat between two boulders and heaved himself out of the cockpit.
He was waist deep in warm water, the 93-R held high.
His most vital objective was to keep the kayak and his own lamp undamaged.
Entombed beneath three thousand feet of solid ice, with God knew how many divergent channels and cataracts in the darkness ahead and no hope of finding the sinkhole and climbing out, he would be lost if the boat was punctured or there was no light to guide him.
He waded out toward the center of the flow.
Froth forming around his hips was visible. Or maybe some small unexpected noise, some subtle change in the myriad level of sound tipped the ambusher off.
Hellfire ripped out from the rocky bank.
A deadly hail splatted into the water as Bolan lifted his feet and thrust himself farther downstream.
But his gun hand was well above the surface... and this time there were muzzle-flashes to aim at.
Before the long burst of automatic fire was exhausted he touched down on the riverbed, steadied himself against the tug of the water and loosed off three triple bursts.
Livid flame flickered in turn from the Beretta, momentarily printing the image of the cavern against the dark as the rock walls hurled back the reports in shattering confusion, explosion drowning echo until the reverberations faded into the distance.
The 9 mm death bringers found their mark. Bolan heard a strangled cry followed by a loud splash. A moment later the stream swept something heavy and inert against his legs and then carried it away.
He moved cautiously to the far bank.
The killer might not have been alone.
He wasn't.
Bolan heard a voice raised in query.
He could even distinguish a slither of feet over the sounds of the river. A faint glimmer of a flashlight, a hand-held model, far less powerful than the one Bolan had destroyed, wavered someplace above the rock shelf, where the marksman had been located. The question was repeated.
Either the backup man must have been deafened by the sounds of the river, or he hadn't realized how far the engagement had gone. There were four rounds left in the Beretta's magazine.
Bolan set two of them free.
The 93-R bucked in his hand, choking out its lethal message. The walls of the cavern repeated it. The torchlight beam described an arc over the edge of the shelf and plummeted down toward the water, carrying its owner with it.
For an instant the illumination reappeared beneath the hurrying flow.
Then, lit from beneath, the surface froth turned pink, darkened to scarlet, clouded over and finally raced away into the blackness.
There was no more movement from the ledge above the water.
Bolan pulled himself out from the river, retrieved his own heavy flashlight and climbed to the ledge.
Empty cans of Icelandic beer, cigarette butts and husks of cheese, bread and fruit showed that the would-be murderers had been there some time. But the eye-opener for the Executioner was the surface of the shelf itself.
The spent shells glistening in the beam of his flashlight lay scattered on a level concrete platform that led back to an alcove hollowed from the cavern wall in which were stowed cartons of food and drink, an inflatable rubber raft and a sophisticated radio transceiver that sat on a wooden bench.
The killers had been lying in wait for him all right. But this was no hasty ambush set up following a report from the airplane that had overflown the ULM while Bolan was preparing his descent into the sinkhole.
What he was looking at was a lookout post that had clearly been in existence for some time.
Bolan switched off the light and sat down in the dark. The questions clamoring for an answer could be put off no longer.
Were these cavern killers, the guys piloting the unidentified airplane and the hardmen making the four previous attempts on his life part of the same team, working out of the same base?
It would be crazy to think otherwise.
Was there something, anything at all that he had noticed that could be a clue to their identity?
Negative.
Clearly, knowing Bolan's reputation and seeing him arrive in Iceland, they had mistakenly assumed he was on the track of some evil project that they were planning. Was there any indication what this could be?
Uh-uh.
Were the lethal methods of "dissuasion" they practiced angled specifically at Mack Bolan, or would they be contingency plans designed to stop anyone wising themselves up on the project?
Until now Bolan had assumed they were specific, but the ambush proved otherwise.
He was sitting in what was obviously a permanent lookout post; materials to fashion a concrete platform and install a two-way radio could hardly have been conveyed to a location deep inside the biggest glacier in Europe in a matter of hours or even days. The place had to have been in existence before he even knew himself that he would be boating past it.
The gunmen had been stationed there to block any caver or canoeist who figured he might like to make it along the underground headwaters of the Jokulsa a Fjollum.
Another thought occurred to Bolan the river must somehow during its course hold the secret these guys were so anxious to keep under wraps.
So what the hell could be so special about a river that rose in an inaccessible subterranean cave and then ran more than one hundred miles through some of the world's coldest, bleakest country?
He had to find out. Because one thing was now crystal clear.
Whatever he may have thought after the earlier attacks, the Executioner's own standpoint was now radically changed.
He decided to carry on with his planned itinerary; there was nothing else he could do. But the aim of the operation would be different. As of now.
To hell with the R and R. This was no longer a vacation trip. No way. The kayak voyage was now a fact-finding mission. Yeah, the unknowns had tried Mack Bolan's patience too far.
He would find out what was brewing along the course of the damned river and put a stop to it.
Or die in the attempt.
Bolan smiled grimly. It seemed he was back on a search-and-destroy kick after all. Despite all those innocent holiday plans. Just the way his unknown enemies had figured he was since the takeoff. They had talked him into it!