Bolan had been seen. There was a shout from the gallery. He vaulted the nearest of the gates and crouched on the catwalk, crossing it as a fusillade ripped out from the gallery and splatted against the steel casing.
Bolan planted his elbows on the flange that topped the gate, then swung up the caseless assault rifle, squinted through the optical handle sight and triggered a 3-round 90 millisecond burst at the KGB goon before he could fire again.
The three reports coughed out as a single snarling bark.
A trio of pint-size death bringers cored through both of the Russian's hands, jerking the Skorpion upward before they slammed on to pierce his heart. Death tightened his trigger finger in the instant that he was hurled backward against the rock wall by the manic force of the tiny slugs, spraying the contents of the machine pistol's magazine roofward to shatter one of the batteries of arc lights.
Reflectors, fragments of aluminum casing and broken glass showered down into the water. At the same time Bolan heard two much heavier splashes from the direction of the inner basin.
Bjornstrom, now using a MAC suppressor on his Ingram, must have profited from the silencing facility to down two more of the opposition.
Three down, three up.
The pair who had thumped down the spiral stairway must by now have located Bolan the short burst from his G-11 had echoed from wall to wall of the cavern complex but there could be no doubt where it originated.
The warrior decided to draw their fire. He would give them something to shoot at. He raced to the far end of the catwalk and leaped up among the scaffolding above the caisson.
Slugs screamed off the metal stays and smashed into the rock beyond as first one Skorpion, then another, blazed out murderous volleys.
Bolan was ready. The muzzle-flashes had flickered from a patch of shadow beneath the arch separating the two basins. He fired from the hip, stitching together the two pools of light with hellfire thread.
The figure-eight death stream seamed the two guards.
They caromed off the wall and slumped sideways, one into each pool of light.
The far one, his chest burst open like a sausage under a grill, fell near the edge of the walkway linking the two caves. Blood bubbled out from beneath him, flowed over the stone lip and clouded the water below.
The second man, illuminated by the light in the main cavern, was still moving. An arm, perforated by splinters of bone, twitched. Splayed fingers reached for the fallen Skorpion.
The face, mouth open and eyes crazed, filled the eyepiece of Bolan's optical sight with hate. He coaxed another miniburst from the G-11 and transformed it into a gory pulp.
Where was the sixth man?
The sound of running footsteps pounded the gallery. The guy shot into view from one of the tunnels opening off the cave and dashed for the one that led to the shelter and the steel-shuttered hut from which the blasting was directed.
Bolan's field of fire was obscured by the scaffolding. From where he was he didn't have a hope of getting back up to the gallery in time.
"Gunner!" he yelled. "The radio, the phone! Stop him before he..." The words died in his mouth.
Bjornstrom had appeared in another of the rock openings. He took in the scene at a glance, raced halfway along the gallery... and stopped dead.
Through the slats of the shutters, he could see the guard grabbing a handset hooked to an instrument fixed on the wall. Whatever happened, the Norwegian knew that the Russians on the surface must not be warned that anything was wrong below.
Without the element of surprise their plan was useless and they would be dead before they got anywhere near Erika.
Bjornstrom had one of the handguns — it was Bolan's AutoMag in his fist. He took a snap sight and fired.
The report of the wildcat .44-caliber shell was deafening. And the force of the recoil took the Icelander off guard. He miscalculated the rise, and the slug caught the edge of a steel slat high up the window and whined off into the darkness of the roof. Glass tinkled to the floor.
The guard dropped the receiver and snatched his machine pistol from a desk beside the window. Before he raised the barrel, Bjornstrom fired again. This time his aim was better.
The 240 grain hollowpoint caught the man full in the throat.
For a heart-stopping moment, as the Russian's mouth opened in astonishment, a scarlet flower bloomed horribly against the whiteness of his skin. Then he toppled to the floor spewing blood, his head almost severed from his body.
Bolan and Bjornstrom arrived at the door of the hut at the same time. The Executioner saw that the telephone handset was still swinging at the end of its lead. He picked it up and hooked it gently back on its cradle.
The machine, one of the few outdated devices in the Russian base, was one of those with a hand-cranked generator, which rang a bell at the other end of the line like an army field telephone.
"Did you get him before he turned the handle?" Bolan asked urgently.
Bjornstrom nodded.
The warrior breathed a sigh of relief. No listening gear would have been alerted on the surface.
"There's no service stairway," he said lightly. "We'll take the elevator to the top floor'"
19
The elevator cage was wide enough to take three jeeps side by side. It was closed by a hand-operated latticework grille that ran noisily on rollers.
As it rose into the darkness from the brightly lit underground chamber, Bolan could imagine the big wheel at the pithead turning. Would there be guards alerted up there on the surface, waiting to move them down the moment they made ground level? Had any of the Russians noticed when they brought the cage creaking down five minutes ago?
The Executioner thought not.
It was no more than a hunch, but it was based on solid reasoning.
The relayed announcement had ordered the work force back to the surface for "briefing on simulated mining activity." The students were due in half an hour. It was likely, therefore, that all available personnel would be required at the briefing, to make sure they knew what they were supposed to do during the conducted tour. Also, it was unlikely during this period that anyone would return to the cavern; because of this, there was a good chance there would be nobody at the top of the shaft to check whether the elevator was up or down. Since the concession was protected on three sides by sheer cliffs, and on the fourth by a wall patrolled by armed men, there was no need to post a guard there.
But it was only a hunch. And there was a chance. In any case there was nothing else he could do. And a fighter should always be prepared to back his own hunches, right?
There were oil drums in back of the elevator cage. Replacements, maybe, for those punctured this morning, which nobody'd had time to shift?
Bolan and the Icelander squatted behind them. Bjornstrom held the silenced Ingram, Bolan the G-ll. Each carried one of the handguns from the neoprene pouch in waterproof shoulder rigs — Bolan this time with Big Thunder, Bjornstrom toting his Beretta.
The elevator jolted to a halt.
Light flooded through the grille. The two men crouched, weapons ready.
Inside the cage, only their quiet breathing broke the silence. Outside, sunlight glinted off a baggage trolley loaded with flat pans of yellowish ore, and from corrugated iron roofing.
But there were no KGB guards waiting on the packed earth surrounding the shaft. A row of huts in front appeared to be deserted, and the cars and trucks ranged behind in a lot excavated from the hillside were all empty. Bolan's hunch had paid off nobody had seen the elevator descend, then return.