"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.

"Gunner and I are not lovers," Erika said. "He has a wife and child in Eskifjordur, on the east coast."

Bjornstrom nodded and grinned. "We are just good friends," he agreed. "We work together."

Slightly unnerved by this Nordic frankness, Bolan sought refuge in another cliche, a military one this time, just to play safe. "I think it's time we synchronized our watches," he said gruffly.

They made the caves without incident, and Erika dived beneath the surface to swim in via the smallest opening. It was a cold morning, with mist still blanketing the cliff tops, but a bright halo glaring through the dun overcast suggested that the sun might break through later.

Bolan and the Icelander were obliged to keep a very low profile approaching the main cavern, because there were now four hitmen posted on the spur, two of them continually scanning the openings and the cliff face above. Finally, taking advantage of the fact that the mist lay thickest on the surface of the fjord, they floated facedown and allowed themselves to be carried through by the incoming tide.

After that it was a matter of waiting, half submerged, under the arch until the first whistle blew.

Once the work force had disappeared, they hauled themselves up onto the dock and made for the spiral stairway that led to the gallery and control room.

From the top of the stairs, Bolan looked through to the smaller chamber and saw Erika, shining in her black frogman gear, emerge from the water by the rowboat and hurry up the slipway.

She turned, saw him and gave a quick thumbs-up before vanishing through the opening that gave onto the powerhouse cave and the generators.

Bolan and his companion checked out the routes they would have to take to their separate targets and then returned to the empty control room.

Soon after the workers returned to the chamber, whistles blew again in the cavern outside.

Hastily they shamed themselves out of sight beneath the UHF radio bench.

"Straight down to the end of the gallery and up onto your rock site once they make the shelter," Bolan whispered.

They heard voices and the clang of feet on the iron stairs. A silence.

Then, over the loudspeakers in Russian, came, "What the hell have you been doing? Hurry, you fool! No, it's too late to forget the shelter you'll have to take cover in the control room."

Bolan and Bjornstrom froze. They wouldn't be able to place any charges during this stoppage! Heavy footsteps thumped along the gallery. A man hurried into the control room, panting. It was the guard who had been on the far side of the cavern. His boots gleamed six inches from Bolan's head.

Two muffed explosions heavier than any they had heard before shook the floor and rocked the bench above them.

Somewhere above the transmitter chassis, glass chattered momentarily.

They held their breath. A third report, and then the whistles again.

A cigarette butt dropped to the floor beside the bench and a heel swiveled to grind it out. The acrid odor of cheap tobacco and wet ash blew in under the bench.

Bjornstrom sneezed.

There was a startled exclamation as the guard bent down. Gray eyes stared unbelievingly at the two saboteurs.