Blood Heat Zero by Don Pendleton Page B

was hard to locate the main channel among the network of passages.
    Bolan steered past chutes of freezing water, hot geysers that spewed mud through the surface of the stream, tributary falls that thundered in his ears and veiled the flashlight beam with mist.
    He encountered only three major difficulties.
    The first was a cataract where the river divided into tiny streams that ran for what seemed hundreds of yards over a slope of smooth pebbles and forced him to carry the kayak on his back while he maneuvered the light to show up treacherous bed beneath the shallow water.
    The second could have buried him beneath the Vatnajokull for keeps.
    He chose the wrong outlet on the far side of a deep, still lake and found himself being carried faster and faster by a strong current that flowed between narrowing walls and a roof so low that he could barely wield his paddle. Then, as he realized his mistake, the stream careered away at right angles and poured through an arch into a basin hollowed from the rock at a much lower level.
    Desperately Bolan flexed his feet against the pegs, straining knees against the control bracings as he dug a blade hard in and leaned against the remorseless pull of the water to bring the kayak broadside onto the flow.
    The vessel swung slowly, too slowly, around. The current jammed it fast across the opening. The fiberglass hull creaked as water roared past and down.
    Bolan was thankful for the mishap.
    The water was too deep to stand in; in any case the current would have swept him away through the narrow opening.
    The pool into which it plunged was at least thirty feet below, judging by the sound of the fall. And even if he survived the drop, he could never get out alive.
    Shakily he unfastened the spray skirt and half rose, reaching for the rock above the opening. He figured that if he was strong enough to maneuver the craft away from the arch and force it along the wall, against the current, until it was safe to swing around and use the paddle again, there was a risk the hull might be damaged against the abrasive basalt.
    It was a risk he had to take.
    Bolan was accustomed to them. And here he had no choice.
    He was in good physical shape, but even with his immense strength and determination it was more than thirty minutes before he shoved the kayak out from the wall, grabbed the paddle in his raw, bleeding hands and used his remaining energy in a battle against the current.
    The third difficulty was too damned close for comfort.
    It happened as the river, wide now and flowing swiftly, rounded a sharp curve.
    He was suddenly confronted by a single wave, four feet high and boiling above a rockfall, scouring a line of swirling suckholes from the riverbed beyond. And in the center of the flow, immediately ahead of the canoe, stood a jagged column that must have fallen from the roof too recently for water to have planed away the cruel edges.
    If the kayak was dashed against that wicked rock, Bolan knew he could kiss the rest of the trip goodbye.
    Maybe the rest of his life, too.
    The maneuver was not all that difficult for an experienced canoeist.
    It was the suddenness of the rock's appearance, whirling out of the dark only feet away from the flashlight, and the lightning speed with which he had to take evasive action that taxed Mack Bolan's honed reactions to their limits.
    He plunged the paddle deep into the water, then shifted his weight and slalomed the kayak through 180 degrees to face upstream.
    Then a single savage bite with the square-tipped blade thrust them aside into the primary channel.
    After that there was no time for anything but prayer.
    Sucked onward by the accelerating flood, the kayak surfed the wave stern first, barely missing the deadly rock.
    The craft shuddered crazily, almost capsized in the wild water... and at last floated out into the center of a placid pool three hundred feet wide.
    Bolan grasped the paddle and propelled the kayak toward the far side of the pool with swift,