There was no sign of the Russians or their raft. The water flowed remorselessly onward, hurling itself over the lip of the cataract. He saw Bjornstrom running along the far bank, but for the moment he was too weak to call out. In any case his voice would have been lost in the thunder of the falls.
By the time he staggered to his feet and waded ashore, the Icelander was no longer in sight.
Bolan knew roughly how far he was from Grimsstadir. For direction, all he had to do was follow at a discreet distance, because the Russians would be back the course of the river. But right now the idea of a five-mile march across that bleak, inhospitable lava plain held little attraction for him.
He had been paddling all night and most of the previous day, when lack of suitable cover, plus the fight with the hoods in the chopper, had cheated him of his rest. He realized, and the heaviness of his overtaxed limbs confirmed it, that he had slept for only one four-hour stretch since he lowered himself into the sinkhole on the Vatnajokull glacier.
If he was to retain the cutting edge of his reactions, the split-second timing that his dangerous trade demanded, he must rest up. Soon.
Before he rolled the kayak, Bolan had stuffed the Beretta back in the waterproof pouch along with his AutoMag. This, with another neoprene sack, was still clipped to his belt.
Tightly wrapped in that second container were thermal inners and the skintight black-quit that had become the Executioner's trademark. There was also a folded, ultralightweight plastic sack that could be opened out to the size of a small suitcase.
Bolan stripped off his wet rubbers and exercised his lithe, muscular body in the chill northern air until his skin was dry. He dressed quickly in the cellular inners, pulled on the black-quit and packed the pouch containing his weapons, his holstered combat belt and the wet suit into the plastic case. It closed with a nylon zipper and sported reinforced handles.
Three hundred yards below the falls, a bluff rose on the eastern side of the river with boulders scattered along the foot of the rock face. Bolan found a sheltered crevice between two of these, lay down with his head resting on the plastic sack and slept.
He woke as the right faded and continued on his way to Grimsstadir.
So far, no clear plan had formed in his mind. He would keep following the Russians, for sure. But now that the kayak was gone, organization of any precise details relating to the chase would have to be played by ear. There was money zippered into his belt.
Perhaps he could rent another boat at Grimsstadir.
He knew, too, that Bjornstrom had survived the dangers of the waterfalls.
But whether or not the big Icelander would rejoin him was no more than a question mark.
Whatever, he would play the cards the way he always did, the way they were dealt.
What astonished him this time was the joker he found in his hand.
The last half mile of his journey to the silent, shuttered town was along a paved highway. Before the first houses there was a gas station with a single pump. He was striding silently past when a voice whispered from the shadows behind the pump.
"Mr. Mack Bolan?" The warrior stopped in midstride, hairs prickling on the nape of his neck. His guns were still inside the plastic carrier.
"Who wants to know?" he said huskily.
"A friend. I have a gift for you from Gunnar."
Bolan's taut muscles relaxed. It couldn't be a trap there was no way the Russians could have known the identity of the second fighter who had downed their chopper.
"Advance, friend," he said dryly, shades of army guard duty flooding his memory, "and be recognized." He caught his breath.
The figure stepping out from behind the pump was that of a woman. As far as he could see in the half light she was tall, slim and blond. Her features were in shadow, but he could see that her hair was cut very short, that she wore jeans and a sweater... and, yeah, that she was stacked.
Most surprising of all was the "gift" that she held out to him without another word.
It was a Heckler and Koch G-11 caseless assault rifle.
11
The Heckler and Koch G-11 looks more like a carrying case for some esoteric musical instrument than a death machine. The twenty-nine-inch grooved plastic housing has no protuberances and only two holes the muzzle and an opening for ejecting misfired rounds.
The pistol grip beneath islet the exact center of gravity and the carrying handle above it also acts as an optical sight.
The rate of fire is very high two thousand rounds per minute maximum, but this is reduced to six hundred on normal autofire.
Although the one hundred rounds contained by the weapon are only 4.7 mm caliber they can be fired in 3-round bursts each lasting only ninety milliseconds and each capable of piercing a steel helmet at a range of five hundred yards.
Mack Bolan was familiar with the gun and its capability. In the present circumstances it was a welcome gift, particularly if there was going to be any action underwater. But its arrival, and the manner of that, was as mysterious as the rest of the events of the past few days.
"I don't understand," he said. "Who are you? How come Gunnar knew I would be here on this road at this time?"
Her name, she told him, was Erika Axelsson. She was a friend of Bjornstrom's. He was aware of her smile in the dawn light.
"It was not so difficult. Gunnar thought at first you had been drowned at the Fjallagfoss. He was very sad. But later one of the Fokker coast-guard planes reported a man sleeping between rocks on the banks of the Jokulsa a Fjollum, and he guessed that it could be you."
Bolan shook his head in bewilderment. He must have been beat, all right he hadn't even heard the plane.
"After that," Erika continued, "well, he said he knew you must come to town. He knew you would probably make it at night. This is the only road you could come by."
"Yeah, but he didn't know he couldn't have known what time I'd arrive. I didn't know myself."
"That was not so much a problem. All I had to do was wait. I have been here since midnight," the woman said simply.
"You waited for me all night?" Bolan was astonished. "Well, I am grateful. But I don't get it. What's your angle? For that matter, what's his?"
"Excuse me?"
"I mean... well, why are you doing this?"
"I told you. I am his friend."
"Okay. But people don't hang in around deserted gas stations all night toting this kind of thing." He hefted the assault rifle in both hands. "I mean, you have to agree it's a little... unusual."
"Gunner is an unusual man."
"Yeah, I found that out. Luckily for me, too. He says he's mad at the Russians for screwing around in his country and he wants to find out why. But that can't be the whole story. What is he really? Some kind of cop?"
"You will have to ask Gunnar," Erika said.
Bolan grinned. "I already did. I didn't get very far. But I'll keep at it. I don't give up that easy."
"Gunner, also. He is a very determined man. But sometimes even for such men it is necessary to trust people, trust them without knowing everything."
"Sure it is," Bolan said. "I think your friend Gunnar and me proved that. Still, even with someone you trust, there are times when it would help to know just who you are trusting!" But he could pry nothing more from the woman about herself, about Bjornstrom or about the special, secret interest he showed in the Russian intrigue.