"Nothing. No, nothing."

Two more flashing lights joined the carnival array high on the board. They felt the rumble before they heard it. It grew slowly and sounded as if it would never stop.

The deserted control room echoed with the sound of alarms. Blinking lights were everywhere. Bolan stared at the flickering monitors. The images were randomly selected. As he watched, a group of shadows zipped past on one screen. As he moved in closer, the image changed.

"Matt, is there any way to select the cameras for these things?"

"Sure. What do you want to see?"

"I don't know. I thought I saw Rachel and Eli. But there were three figures. They were gone before I could get a fix on it."

"Okay, I'll run through the cameras one at a time. Keep an eye on the top left-hand screen. If you see something, holler."

Stevens sat at the security console. One by one, he scrolled through the cameras. Bolan watched intently. He was beginning to doubt that he had seen anything. Image after image of the gloomy depths of the plant flew by corridors, storage rooms, work areas dominated by huge conduits and rumbling machinery.

"Hold a minute. Go back." Bolan shouted in his excitement. "No, one more. There."

The three figures he had seen were back. It was too dimly lit to be sure who they were, but despite their suits, he knew one of them was a woman. Their backs were to the camera, and they were stooped over, moving cautiously.

"Can you move in closer, Matt?"

"Hang on." Stevens looked for the right button. When he found it, the image on the screen grew larger. The figures were still dark, but there was no question. He had found Eli and Rachel. But who was the third person?

He had to know.

"What's that location?"

"It's on Level 4. The southwest quadrant."

"Matt, you stay here. Don't let anyone you don't know in here."

"Where the hell are you going?" But Bolan was already gone.

28

The elevator was interminably slow. When it finally arrived, Bolan rushed in. He hit the button and waited for the doors to close. The ride down took forever. It seemed as if he had done nothing but ride up and down the damned elevator.

On the lowest level of the plant once again, he rushed through the elevator doors before they had fully opened. The corridor was even darker than it had been. He paused to get his bearings, then ran to the corner of the hall. The long concrete passage stretched dimly ahead. He heard and saw nothing.

Wherever Eli and Rachel had been going, they were in a hurry. That could mean only one thing. They knew where the hostages had been moved. Bolan was running at top speed. The concrete echoed with his heavy steps. The corridor seemed endless. Suddenly he was in the open. The right-hand wall ended, and he found himself in a wilderness of throbbing machinery. Huge conduits ran in seemingly endless banks overhead.

It was a steel jungle. The hum of the machines was off-key somehow. He knew the reactor was overheating. Something was getting ready to blow.

Unwilling to run into opposition at full tilt, he had to slow his pace. Listening for anything that didn't belong, he worked his way among the towering structures.

A huge generator loomed just ahead. He was at the heart of the plant. Beyond was another jungle, a mirror image of the one he had just passed through. He paused again. The area looked familiar. He was certain it was the area through which he had seen Rachel and Eli pass. Bolan dropped to the floor, peering into the murk, trying to see under the tangled pipes and bunched cables. Visibility was limited.

He saw nothing.

Getting to his feet, he moved around the generator. He had to be getting close. But where the hell was everybody? Bolan fingered the trigger on his SMG. The wilderness stretched ahead of him, vanishing in the dark. The generator was behind him now, groaning like a wounded beast. If he didn't find them soon, he might have to continue in total darkness.

There must be an emergency system. He wished he had thought to tell Matt Stevens to kick it in.

Too late now.

Bolan thought he was approaching the bottom of the containment building. There was a double-locked access.

If Glinkov planned to herd the hostages into it, it would have to be done from nearby.

The first burst of fire caught him by surprise.

He hit the deck, straining to place the point of origin. A second burst was louder. The thunder seemed to echo through the bowels of the plant as if it, too, wanted to get out. This time he got a fix on it. Regaining his feet, he bent low and moved toward the sound. He couldn't tell whether the fire had been returned. It might have been somebody on edge.

Nerves were bound to give way in the eerie half-light. Behind him Bolan heard the sound of the generator. It was rising and falling. Then it died altogether. It was pitch-dark. Bolan froze in his tracks. For a long moment he heard nothing, then shouts were followed by more automatic weapon fire. It was close. He couldn't afford to use a flashlight. Any moving light would be an easy target.

Another burst of gunfire cast ghostly shadows that vanished immediately. He moved closer. Like dawn breaking, a dim light began to appear. Stevens must have kicked in the emergency generator. The light wasn't bright, but it was better than nothing.

Just ahead, he saw a figure crouched behind a huge, dead machine. The outline was too vague for him to tell who it was. He circled around behind the machine, keeping his eye on the hiding figure. As he got closer, the figure left its cover and moved forward. There were two others off to its left.

They too were crouched and moving forward. The last figure moved again, passing just beneath one of the emergency lamps. It was Rachel.

Bolan sprinted to her side.

She turned to him. "It's about time you showed up."

"What's going on?"

"They moved the hostages. They're locked in a storeroom up ahead."

"How many of the goons are there?"

"Eli thinks ten, maybe twelve."

"You know what they're planning to do, don't you?"

She nodded. "I know."

Cohen was crouched behind a stack of metal drums, ahead and to the left. Bolan whistled, and Cohen turned. He broke into a grin.

"Who's your buddy?" Bolan asked, indicating the third figure, kneeling in the shadows beyond Cohen.

"Parsons," Rachel said.

"What?"

"He says he didn't know what Glinkov was planning until tonight. Glinkov was going to have him shot, but he greased the guy who was going to do it. With a gun that Glinkov had given him. How's that for poetic justice?"

"It's not bad for a fairy tale. I don't buy it."

"I didn't either, at first."

"You do now?"

She nodded. "I do. He saved our lives. We were jumped while we were working on the door to the control room. They killed Adam."

"I know."

"Parsons hit them from behind. If he hadn't, we'd have been blown away."

"Do you trust him, Rachel?"

"Do we have a choice?"

"I guess not. I'll be back. I want to talk to Eli."

Bolan crossed the dim expanse between Rachel and Cohen.

"Where are they holed up?"

"Most of them are straight ahead, up near the wall. I hope they're all there. If they get around our flank, we're in big trouble."

"Maybe we shouldn't give them the chance," Bolan said.

"Lead on, Mack."

Bolan hefted his Ingram and moved to the right.

"When I give you the sign, we'll move," he whispered. "Let's stay spread out, so they can't gang up on us."

"You got it. Tell Parsons."

Bolan looked at Cohen without saying anything.

"I mean it, Mack. Tell him. Listen, we need all the help we can get."

Bolan slipped through the shadows, taking a position just behind the older man.