The boat was a powered rubber raft with a 25 hp Excelsior outboard tilted up over the stern. There was more than enough room for two, even with Bolan's supplies and the spare fuel jerricans.
But the Executioner preferred to stick with the patched-up kayak partly because he had no wish to be dependent on Bjornstrom, although the enigmatic Icelander had so far proved a reliable ally, but mainly because he was determined as long as possible to keep up the fiction of his self-imposed vacation task Bolan's priority was still to learn the identity of the guys who had decided to eliminate him. But to keep faith with himself was damned near as important. Mack Bolan was not the kind of man who would be content to leave a job unfinished.
There was, too, the matter of logistics. Two crafts would be more difficult for their enemies to destroy than one. Twice as difficult in fact.
With two they would have more freedom of movement, and that extra mobility could mean the difference between life and death.
Again, if one was destroyed and the supplies had been equally divided between them, they would not be left with nothing.
It did not even occur to Bolan that both might be destroyed.
As Bjornstrom had said, the twenty miles passed without incident. The river wound its way through narrow defiles, between high banks of volcanic shingle, at the foot of gorges channeled from the rock. They passed black sandbanks, mudflats bubbling with miniature geysers and tributaries of hot water, where the steam blew from the surface like spray on a stormy day.
Herds of wild ponies and an occasional pair of giant crows, riding the wind above the desolate landscape, were the only forms of life they saw until late in the afternoon. Then, far away on a track that climbed a huge mountain slope, they saw the antlike form of some vehicle laboring toward the crest.
Later, hang gliders, a trio of light aircraft and even a solitary ULM passed overhead, all of them presumably from the strip at the foot of the volcanic crater.
Before their ghostly journey through the gloom of the sub-Arctic night they were twice halted by what the tourist guides called "major waterfalls." Bjornstrom proved his worth once more on the first of these, where the widening river slid over a rock shelf to plunge forty feet or more into a foaming pool.
For two miles before the fall, the current flowed smoothly between vertical cliffs of crumbling basalt that towered higher every hundred yards. If the Icelander had not known intimately that reach of the Jokulsa a Fjollum and urged Bolan to disembark the moment the rocky banks closed in, the Executioner would have had to waste precious time backing up, because the eroded lava faces were completely unclimbable.
The second cataract was really a long and furious rapid class six; impossible.
In each case a portage was unavoidable, Bolan carrying his kayak and Bjornstrom humping the deflated Hypalon raft, with both men returning each time to fetch the outboard engine, which they maneuvered over the fissured rock between them.
Afloat again, and making good time toward Grimsstadir, they saw the same monoplane Bolan had twice before recognized, low beyond a bluff overlooking the river. But this ship came out of the thickening dusk in the north, not from the hilly ramparts buttressing the ancient crater.
"Keeping tabs," Bolan called to the Icelander. "My guess, once they've located us again, is some kind of surface attack at dawn, just before we pack it in for the day." Whatever else could be said about the killers, it had to be admitted they were punctual.
Their own rubber raft, Bolan guessed, must have been off-loaded upriver from a truck. It was a quieter, cleaner and closer method than another helicopter assault. Probably more efficient, too, in the long run.
It wouldn't have been too difficult for them, either, deciding where to make their launch. Between the reach where the spotter plane had last seen them and the Dettifoss Iceland's largest waterfall, a few miles downstream there was only one sector where two men and two boats could remain unseen during the daylight hours a long winding canyon where the river twisted through an extrusion of igneous rock that pierced the lava plateau.
Here frost and biting winds had hollowed huge caves from the cliffs, the rush of icy water below had sculpted granite and other rock that Bolan couldn't recognize into great curving overhangs that resembled petrified waves breaking.
Bolan and his companion were starting to stow their gear and settle down on the shingle beach at the far end of a lofty cavern when they heard the stutter of the Russians outboard.
There were five men aboard. Two of them carried Czech-made Skorpion machine pistols, another couple were armed with the latest model Uzi submachine guns. The helmsman, minding the engine, wore a webbing harness that supported a row of grenades and a holstered Stetchkin automatic.
Bolan saw them in the distance, veering from side to side of the canyon, checking out each hollow among the tumbled rocks with their weapons at the ready.
"Damn!" Bolan said. "We're finished if we stay here. We'll have to run for it now!"
Bjornstrom carried two spare clips for the Ingram's 3 round magazine. He slammed one in and pushed the inflatable raft back into the water. Bolan's two guns were already loaded. He eased himself into the kayak's cockpit and fastened the spray skirt.
"You want me to tow?" the Icelander asked. "While the river is smooth here I can maybe go faster."
Bolan shook his head. "If there are two of us and they go for both, it cuts their effective firepower by half; if they fix on one, the other will be free to the covering fire and enfilade them."
The Russians were between three and four hundred yards upstream.
Bjornstrom jerked the cord, and the Excelsior roared to life while the enemy craft was beached and a pair of hardmen were exploring a long, narrow cave between two slabs of lava that had broken away from the cliff and fallen into the river.
Bolan nosed the kayak into the stream and started paddling furiously; the Icelander also shoved out his raft and scrambled over the inflated side.
He lowered the outboard into the water and sat with the tiller in one hand.
The Ingram lay ready on the thwart beside him.
There was a shout from the Russians.
Bolan glanced over his shoulder and saw the two recon scouts running back to their craft. He paddled as fast as he could, his arms flailing the paddle in and out of the swirling water.
Bjornstrom chugged past, furrowing the surface with white. "There is fast water after the next bend," he shouted. "But I think we make it more quickly than them."
Bolan nodded. No point wasting energy with words.
The fast water was in fact a boiling rapid, where the river hurled itself down a slope interspersed with ragged tips of rock that threatened every second to slit the gray Hypalon of the raft and rip open the kayak's hull.
Bjornstrom cut the engine and tipped fuel tank, shaft and screw out of the racing water as he allowed himself to be carried on by the stream, parrying left and right with forceful strokes of a single concave paddle.
Bolan was wielding his two-blade like a crazy man, bracing every few yards with feet and knees straining against the supports, wrists aching from the leverage necessary to thrust the kayak against the force of the current.
Raft and kayak were more often than not three-quarters submerged among the whitecaps of the wild water as the two men gave everything they had to keep their craft away from the perilous crags.
In the last few yards before the Russians' raft was swept into the rapid, they opened fire.
But small craft half swamped in foam and bobbing like corks made tough targets at two hundred feet. At three hundred yards it was just a waste of ammunition. The rasp of the Uzis was lost in the river's roar; wherever the slugs went, it was nowhere near Bolan or the Icelander.
Beyond the rapid the river widened again and the canyon's rocky walls fell away to reveal a barren moonscape of black gravel and volcanic shale studded with vast blocks of primeval stone. And it was here, where the river ran wide and fairly shallow, that the death squad began gaining on the Executioner and his friend.
Spent slugs splashed just astern of the kayak. Bolan plowed grimly on, sweat streaking his face as he urged the lightweight canoe ever faster ahead of the streaming current. There was no point attempting to return the fire if the Uzis were out of range it would be senseless to lose ground while he wasted ammunition from his two shorter-range handguns.
Bjornstrom was using the outboard again. The rubber raft, stern squatting in the water, was forging ahead. Twin waves curled outward from the prop to wash up the banks of dark shingle on either side of the river.
Twice the Icelander turned around to loose off a short burst from the Ingram neither caused any damage to the pursuing raft or its occupants but most of his effort was concentrated on an island of rumbled stones surrounding a basalt outlier that divided the river into two sections a quarter of a mile ahead.
If he could beach his own boat and get among those rocks while the Russians were still afloat... if he could start shooting in earnest from the cover of those boulders while they were still vulnerable on their raft... if he could make the goddamn island before the bastards were near enough to get Bolan in their sights.
But the Executioner was tiring. He had been using every ounce of his formidable strength for more than two miles, and even he could not keep that up indefinitely.
The hunters were seventy yards away.
The stabbing roar of the Uzis and the harsher rasp of Skorpion machine pistols were audible over the sounds of the river. But from the moment their firepower was directed at Bjornstrom.
His raft was fifty yards short of the island... forty... thirty.
And then suddenly the engine sputtered and died. The craft listed heavily to starboard as the rubber gunwale on that side began to deflate.
The assassins' bullets, aimed first at the boat rather than the man, had struck home.
The raft spun slowly, deep in the water, moving sluggishly toward the channel, racing past the western side of the island.
Bolan's kayak, losing ground rapidly to the Russians, was on the far side of the river.
The killer craft was less than fifty yards away.
Bjornstrom leaped into the water.
Waist deep, he forced his way to shore and flung himself down behind the first group of boulders.
From between two humps of granite he triggered a long burst from the MAC-11, the shots cracking out so fast one after the other that they resembled a continuous deadly drumroll.
One of the Russians dropped his Uzi into the river and folded forward over the inflated gunwale with a flood of crimson spurting from his savaged chest. Blood oozed out between his clenched fingers. But the other SMG was still shooting at the island.
Bjornstrom was forced to duck to avoid a hail of lead splatting off the rocks on either side.
The men with the Skorpions were both firing at Bolan now. A squad of steel jacketed skull busters struck one of the paddle blades and sheared it off as easily as a wire passing through cheese; a second group drilled through the kayak's hull on the waterline.
Bolan felt one slice off the heel of his boot as water jetted into the cockpit.
But now suddenly, entering a narrowing channel on the east side of the island, where the current was far stronger, the kayak was seized by the speeding river and whirled away, faster than Bolan could have paddled, toward another wide bend in the river.
In the grip of the same accelerating flow, the pursuers' craft began to spin. The wounded helmsman was unable to hold it straight with his undamaged hand. Following the kayak, it was whisked past the island.
Bjornstrom stood up, scrambled to the top of the central rock pile and discharged the Ingram's magazine. He crouched there, a powerful figure amidst a thin blue haze of gun smoke and the glint of ejected brass shell cases, coolly aiming at the receding Russians.
Bolan was also firing now. Allowing the kayak to chart its own course, he slipped one hand beneath the spray skirt and came up with the Beretta.
One after the other, he mailed a succession of triple death wishes the enemy's way, special delivery.
There was confusion on the Russian raft. The remaining Uzi was shooting rearward at Bjornstrom. One of the Skorpions was attempting to change places with the injured helmsman; the other, spraying death Bolan's way, looked over his shoulder and started to shout, pointing now frenziedly downstream. The raft rocked dangerously.
Swinging around the bend in the river, Bolan looked up from the Beretta... and saw why the guy was frantic, why the current was speeding up so much. They were fast approaching the Dettifoss.
Centered on a vast plain of naked lava, the waterfall was shaped like a miniature Niagara.
The wide river slid smoothly ova a U-shaped shelf in a roaring curtain of white to plummet into a boiling caldron of foam from which the spray rose above the cascade in a misty cloud that veiled the sky.
No man, with or without life jacket or flotation vest, could survive in that hellhole of stormy water, even if by some miracle he survived the dizzying drop.
Bolan dug the half paddle that remained to him feverishly into the current, striving to turn the kayak and face back upstream. But the little craft was becoming waterlogged. Low in the water, it was difficult to maneuver.
And now that the Russians had outdistanced Bjornstrom, all their firepower was concentrated on the canoe.
The chatter of the outboard rose to a crescendo as the new helmsman pulled out maximum power to combat the manic force of the river sucking him toward the murderous cataract. The most he could do was steady the raft while the two gunners, one Uzi and one Skorpion, spat hate in Bolan's direction. Even so, slowly but relentlessly, they were being drawn back toward the fall.
Bjornstrom's swamped and half-deflated raft swept past and disappeared over the edge of the cataract.
Bolan was in the worst position. With half a paddle, he was no match for the mighty force of the rushing water.
Steadily, inexorably, the kayak was drawn stern-first toward the lip of the falls.
The Beretta's magazine was empty.
Bolan thought he might have winged the remaining submachine gunner, who had flopped down into one of the raft's seats. But he might have been paddling on the far side to help the guy at the tiller. There was no time to check: the wounded killer was firing the Stetchkin with his good arm; the remaining man with the Skorpion firing from the shoulder with the machine pistol's wire stock extended was pumping 7.65 mm slugs on full-auto at the kayak.
Seeing the line of holes creep-along the prow toward the cockpit, Bolan took advantage of the only maneuver open to him he swept the paddle blade to one side, snapped his hips violently sideways and dumped the canoe into an Eskimo roll.
The waterlogged canoe turned slowly onto its back; Bolan disappeared beneath the surface.
In the distance, Bjornstrom watched aghast as the keel line of the American's capsized craft was riddled from stem to stern by the Russian gunners. Half awash in the speeding flood, the kayak did not right itself.
With increasing speed, it shot toward the lip of the falls.
For a dizzy moment it seemed to hang at the edge, the pointed bow rising almost vertically from the water. Then it vanished into the maelstrom below.
For an instant the Icelander thought he saw Bolan's yellow helmet reappear among the turbulent eddies racing toward the lip, then it, too, was swept away and dropped out of sight.