Blood Heat Zero by Don Pendleton Page B

nothing to stop him being shot over into the seething maelstrom below.
    He was above the rock rampart now, still shooting downstream.
    An extra push of his legs... a desperate grab for a rough projection as he wedged the fingers of his other hand into a crevice splitting the chiseled face... and then slowly, against the manic force of the current, he hauled himself down until he was crouched on the riverbed in the shelter of the rampart.
    He lay flat, pressing himself into the angle between rock and riverbed, and started to crawl toward the bank.
    It was a difficult maneuver. He had to concentrate on forward movement, yet combine this with resistance to the lateral pull of the current that threatened every second to pluck him away from his underwater refuge and hurl him into oblivion.
    The sounds of the river were drowned by the roaring of blood in his ears, the rattle of stones by the thump of his heart. He had no idea how far he had crawled or how far he had still to go.
    He was running out of air; his lungs were bursting with the effort of moving in an oxygen-deprived situation.
    Bolan forced himself onward. He had forgotten the purpose of his vacation trip, forgotten the mystery of the river, the Russians and Bjornstrom, forgotten even the risk of hurtling over the falls to his death. Every fiber of his being was centered on a single aim to reach the riverbank before his lungs gave out on him and he lost consciousness.
    Or died.
    For although Bolan was an athlete, a man with a husky body never less than one hundred percent in shape, he had always preferred to pit his agility, speed and muscular coordination, his strength and determination against the forces of nature rather than those of a human competitor.
    "The only meaningful competition," he wrote once in his journal, "is against oneself. But perhaps competition is not the right word it is more that one pushes oneself to the ultimate limits of endurance, capacity and capability and, in coming back from these limits, learns a lesson more valuable than any to be gained besting another person." It was this ethos that had brought him to Iceland in the first place, this which urged him to continue his challenge even after the Russians had organized a manhunt placing his life in jeopardy.
    And in the end it was Bolan's particular brand of steely determination that triumphed over adversity. But it was a near thing, a very near thing.
    Into his dimming consciousness floated the idea that the face of the rock rampart was losing height, that the pull of the current had diminished, that the water was shallower.
    With the last of his fading strength he dragged himself a final few yards... and let go.
    He sat up on the bed of the river.
    And his head was above water.
    Bolan gulped in great drafts of air, breathing in ragged gasps until the hammering of his heart slowed down. He sat without moving, staring out across the swirling surface of the river, the crashing roar of the waterfall once more in his ears.
    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