Neatly labeled in Cyrillic lettering he saw multiple banks of switch gear and levers to operate the gates and dams of the lock, controls for the shaft and elevator, the generator turbines and all the pithead mechanism.
Plus radar installations, monitor screens, a data-bank terminal, the console for a massive computer and a complete radio transmitting and receiving deck. Above the benches, the wall glittered with dials.
"No problem putting this gear out of commission," Bolan said. "Three well-placed sticks would wreck all of it. But how long is it going to take them to replace it? I think they could be back where they are today by next spring, fully operative by summer. And that just isn't good enough. What we need is some structural damage, something to damage the whole damned base so completely that it can't be repaired at all."
"You mean like blowing a hole in the bottom of the fjord and letting all the water out?" Bjornstrom joked.
"Something like that. Destroying the shaft for a start. And if we could sabotage the entrance in some way."
"But we could!" Bjornstrom was excited. "Have you noticed the state of the rock when we came in?"
"Yeah, it was weathered to hell. Dangerous too, some of it rotted enough to crumble away in your hand."
"Something else besides. There is two hundred feet of cliff above the main entrance. This is one big weight to press down on an arch that does not even have a keystone."
"You mean?.." Bolan in turn looked excited.
"I mean there is already a cracking and a partial subsidence. One big slab of granite has slipped and jammed itself across a chimney in the rock face. While it is there, all remains firm. But if it was not there..." Bjornstrom paused and shook his head.
"How much would come down?"
"I am not a professional quarryman, but I think maybe one thousand, two thousand tons."
"Right into the channel leading to the cavern? You mean it could block or at least partly block the minisubs' entry?"
The Icelander nodded.
Bolan was jubilant. "And that damage they could never repair. They could never clear the passage again because it couldn't be done secretly the whole world would see what they were doing! Can we get to this slab unseen? Have we enough plastic to dislodge it?"
"We need to fracture only one corner, then it would move. After that, the weight of the rock will do the rest. But to be sure we would require maybe ten or twelve sticks."
"Okay. We'll place the others more carefully. And the access?"
"It is not difficult," Bjornstrom said. "A crevice not far above the ledge where we came in is near enough to the slab for the explosive to work. But it must be done while everyone is in the shelter because the crevice is inside the arch and the man putting it there can be visible to any person on the quay or in the gallery."
"No sweat," Bolan said. "If necessary we'll create a diversion!"
15
"You know the technique," Bolan said. "For each charge you take a watch, pry out the glass and drill a small hole in it. Then break off the minute and second hands and scrape the luminous paint off the hour hand so that the naked metal is exposed." Demonstrating with his knife blade, he continued, "Snap the glass back in place with the hole above the numeral 11 or 12 and incorporate the watchcase in a circuit including a battery and detonator. Solder the free end of your copper wire to one of the steel drawing pins and insert it through the hole. All you have to do then is push the detonator into the plastic, wind the watch and set the hour hand as far back as you need. That gives you a delay of anything from one to eleven hours." Bjornstrom nodded. "The watch ticks away. When the hour hand touches the shank of the pin, the circuit is completed... and up she goes!"
They made a production line out of it. Erika removed the watch glasses and handed them to Bjornstrom, who drilled the holes. Bolan doctored the watch hands. Then, while the two men wired up each watchcase in series with a battery and detonator, she "soldered" the free end of each circuit to a pin with superglue.
Bolan had made a list, allocating where each of the thirty-six sticks of C4 should be placed triple bundles for the elevator mechanism at the foot of the shaft and each of the three generators; doubles for the transformer and lock gates; and single sticks for the switchboard, the sluice controls and the most vulnerable installations operated from the control room.
Finally each charge was taped into a neat package with the watch on top ready for winding and setting.
The twelve packages were divided between the two neoprene sacks Bolan had salvaged from the kayak and an oiled silk pouch provided by Erika.
The Norwegian woman herself insisted that she accompany them into the secret base and help place the charges. At first Bolan objected but he was overruled by Bjornstrom.
"I shall give the orders relating to her," he said firmly. "We work. We are a team. She is trained in this kind of operation. Besides, it is safer and more efficient and it will cut the time we have to be inside the caves by thirty percent."
This Bolan could not deny. They agreed, then, that Erika, wearing her rubber dry-suit with the oiled silk pouch strapped to her waist, would swim in via the smallest of the caves and remain in the second chamber, from which she would attend to the three generator turbines and their supply pipes plus the transformer and switchboard, which she could approach from the rear.
Wet-suited and carrying one neoprene sack each, Bolan and the Icelander would handle the rest.
Bjornstrom, because he was familiar with the local rock formations, was to place the big charge destined to block the entrance and then run through the gallery to sabotage the mine shaft.
Bolan reserved for himself the operating gear and electronics in the control room. He was also to place the vital charge that would damage the lock gates and, if it was successful, let water into the dry-dock and flood the construction chamber.
"And the time lag?" Bjornstrom asked.
Bolan fingered his jaw. "We have to wind and set the watches before we leave," he said slowly. "Allow a half hour to swim as far as the caves and another to make it inside. Then we'll need to wait out at least three work stoppages before we get the stuff in place. They start the first shift at seven. Suppose they're ready to blow their first charge on the rock face around eight. Could be we won't all be clear of the place before eleven. I'd say four o'clock in the afternoon would be a good time to blow."
"Four, three, two, one, twelve, eleven..." Bjornstrom counted off the hours on his fingers. "So if we wrap up all the preparations and leave here for the caves at 6:00 A.M., we should allow a ten-hour countdown?"
Bolan nodded. "That should give us plenty of time a big enough margin to leave the whole area before anyone starts asking awkward questions about foreigners."
"The pins are inserted between eleven and twelve on the watch faces," Erika said. "So working backward from there we must set the hour hands between one and two o'clock when we wind them?"
"That's my girl!" Bolan said without thinking. And intercepted a look from Erika of such frank approval that he felt embarrassed. "Just a manner of speaking," he mumbled with a smile.
She gazed straight into his eyes. "It could be a manner of action," she said.
Bolan shifted uncomfortably and shot a sideways glance at Bjornstrom.