It was an Ingram MAC-11, a deadly machine pistol.
The finger on the trigger belonged to a husky dude, almost Bolan's height, with straight blond hair above blue eyes deep set in a tanned weather-beaten face. He was wearing a fisherman's sweater, denim pants and rubber wading boots. He didn't look much like the other hardmen who had tried, unsuccessfully, to get the drop on the Executioner.
But he looked as dangerous.
Bolan halted two feet away at the far end of the catwalk, keeping his hands in sight and well clear of his body. He eyed the flesh-shredder held unwaveringly in the guy's big hands.
"Who are you? What do you want?" he asked evenly realizing as he heard the sound of his own voice that these were the first words he had spoken in his own language since he led Egilsstadir almost forty-eight hours before.
"I wish only to talk," said the man holding the Ingram. "You and me, I think we maybe are fighting on the same side."
8
His name was Gunnar Bjornstrom. He was an Icelandic citizen, Bolan learned, but his family came from Norway.
Before that, there was a brief interrogation.
"You are Mack Bolan, the man known as the Executioner?"
Bolan did not deny it.
"More recently known as Colonel John Phoenix, of Stony Man Farm, in Virginia?"
"Recently? It seems a long time ago," Bolan said.
"You have waged what they call a one-man war against, first, the Mafia, and then terrorists all over the world?"
"What of it?"
"And lately it is against the KGB especially that you have been fighting?"
"You are well informed."
"It is important that I know who you are," the Icelander said.
"Look, you've got the drop on me with that;" the soldier nodded toward the SMG. "So what do you intend to do?" Even as he spoke the warrior sensed that this man was not the enemy.
"So what do you do in Iceland, Mr. Bolan?" Bjornstrom asked in turn, ignoring Bolan's question.
"I'm on vacation," Bolan said.
"A vacation? And you shoot always on vacation some Russians maybe? In caverns and along the river at night? You are on a hunting trip perhaps hunting for men?"
"I planned to make a source-to-mouth trip along this river. Some guys tried to kill me for no apparent reason. So I killed them."
Bjornstrom smiled. Strong teeth flashed white against the tan of his face. "I am coming upriver myself when you fight. So I halt myself to see what happen."
"Thanks for your help!" Bolan said dryly.
"You do not understand. First, I have to know where you fight. I mean on which side."
"So it is a fight, is it?"
Bjornstrom shrugged. "A fight. An investigation. A curiosity to satisfy. Call it what you want."
"Okay, so who are you working for?"
"I am very inquisitive man," Bjornstrom said evasively. "When I see strangers making much secret work in my country strangers who pretend they operate only a mining concession I ask myself why. I ask myself why they wish nobody along the river, why they have gunmen beneath Vatnajokull when the concession is more than one hundred miles away. I ask myself but there is no answer. So I try to find out myself."
"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.