Bear Grylls: The Hunt (Will Jaeger Book 3) Read online

  Jaeger lived by the mantra that presumption was the mother of all screw-ups. If they presumed El Padre had no monitoring and direction-finding kit in place, they would likely die by that presumption. The gang’s boss was running a multi-billion-dollar narco business, and he could afford to hire the best. Hence the precautions.

  Message sent, they set the first watch rota. Jaeger and Raff would take up position at the vantage point, while Narov and Alonzo got their heads down. Much as she tried to hide it, it was clear that Narov was beat. By contrast, the hard-as-nails African American still looked relatively fresh.

  That was Alonzo: unbreakable. He would keep a watch over Narov while she rested.

  As Jaeger crawled forward, he reflected upon Narov’s condition. He’d never known her anything other than indestructible. He was getting a sense now of what the Dubai mission, plus her subsequent escape, must have taken out of her.

  There was no doubt she’d suffered to prove her conviction that Kammler was alive and plotting mayhem and mass murder. And it was her balls and brass that had brought them here to uncover the dark truth and put a stop to him.

  Quite a woman, Jaeger thought.

  31

  With darkness, Dodge truly came alive.

  The throbbing beat of generators reached Jaeger and Raff clearly, as DIY street lighting sparked into life. Bare bulbs were strung from wiring looped along the dirt roads on makeshift telegraph poles. And with nightfall the narcos appeared to love nothing more than parading their weaponry.

  As the ridge was shrouded in shadow, Jaeger and Raff didn’t need to worry too much about being spotted. There was no need to use night-vision goggles either. They could scan the well-lit streets with bog-standard binoculars.

  They counted the individuals as they moved about, and ID’d their hardware. The gang was remarkably well armed. Apart from the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifles, Jaeger noted rocket-propelled grenade launchers, scores of M60 light machine guns, and even the odd .50-calibre heavy machine gun mounted in the rear of a pickup truck.

  In short, a ready-made war in a box.

  But it wasn’t until approaching midnight that things really started to get interesting. Horribly distorted Latino-style music started pulsating out of speakers set around the central crossroads. More and more figures gathered in that area, nearly all of them male. They were drawn to a couple of neon-lit buildings – Dodge City’s main drinking dens. Every so often a pickup would arrive, disgorging more figures. Occasionally a scantily clad woman would emerge from a bar and drag one of the men inside.

  It didn’t take a genius to work out that these had to be ladies of the night.

  Shortly after midnight, the shit truly hit the fan. A group of men came tumbling out of a doorway and a massive brawl ensued. It culminated in several of them drawing their sidearms and loosing off wild shots. The chaos only subsided when a couple of trucks arrived, complete with some seriously tooled-up narcos.

  The fight was broken up, some of the worst offenders relieved of their weapons and sent on their way. No one had been shot, and despite the obvious lawlessness of the place, there seemed to be a means of keeping order. Clearly El Padre would tolerate a degree of high spirits, but nothing that would endanger his operations.

  At 0100 hours, Jaeger signalled that he was heading for the rear position. His five-hour watch was done. They’d stagger the changeover so that there was always one set of eyes on Dodge. Raff would be relieved in turn by Narov.

  ‘Change of shift,’ Jaeger whispered to Alonzo. ‘Raff’ll brief you in situ.’

  Feeling exhaustion creeping up on him, he curled up on the waterproof poncho that Alonzo vacated. He dragged his lightweight sleeping bag out of his pack, zipped it open to act like a blanket, and got his head down. He was fully clothed and still wearing his boots, and his weapon was cradled at his side. That way, if they were hit during the night, he was good to move and fight.

  He sensed the scores of mosquitoes homing in on his position. They began to dive-bomb him, their incessant whining drilling into his head. He flailed around groggily, found his mozzie head-net and pulled it on, bagging it out around his face like a beekeeper’s helmet.

  Then he lay back and drifted into a deep sleep.

  He awoke sometime later with a start.

  He sat bolt upright, his hand on his weapon.

  Gunfire cut the night; that was what had woken him. This time, though, it wasn’t pistol shots. It was the distinctive crack of ‘longs’ – assault rifles.

  He glanced across at Raff, who was equally wide awake. ‘What the hell?’

  Raff shrugged and glanced in Alonzo and Narov’s direction. ‘If it was aimed at us, they’d be here by now to warn us.’

  ‘High spirits in Dodge?’

  ‘Sounds like it’s party-bloody-city.’ Raff gave Jaeger a hard look. ‘Hardly strikes me as the kind of place where Kammler’s gonna build his INDs.’

  ‘Don’t I know it.’

  ‘Plus there’s no visible sign of him or his people.’

  ‘There isn’t.’ Jaeger paused. ‘You know what, mate, there’s only one way to prove this. We’ve got to do a CTR.’

  CTR: close-target recce. SAS speak for getting spitting-distance close to the enemy.

  ‘We execute a CTR,’ Jaeger continued. ‘If we find Kammler or his people, we move in with the demolitions charges and blow the place to shit.’

  Raff nodded. ‘Agreed. But that’s one for you and your Russian lady friend. You’ll enjoy it. Plus you two hide better than Alonzo and me.’

  ‘Makes sense. You wouldn’t be able to resist getting stuck into the nearest brothel or brawl.’

  ‘My kind of town.’ Raff smiled, his teeth showing white in the darkness. ‘You clock those ditches? Running from the edge of the clearing right into the heart of the place?’

  ‘Yeah. Why?’

  ‘Figure they’re a solid route in.’

  ‘What d’you reckon to them? Defensive?’

  ‘Nah. Drainage more likely.’

  Jaeger shuddered. ‘Great. Another midnight crawl through a sodden jungle shit pit . . .’

  He settled back to rest. Tomorrow promised to be a long day.

  32

  It was late afternoon on their second day when Jaeger and his team withdrew from the ridge, descended the slope at the rear and set out due north. They’d kept a close watch on Dodge all through the hours of daylight, but there had been zero sign of Kammler or his cohorts, which made the CTR a real priority.

  They looped around their former hilltop position until they were barely 250 metres short of Dodge. There they cached their bergens, covering them in thick vegetation, at a point they could easily find their way back to. Each prepared a separate day sack stuffed full of the bare necessities – medical pack, twenty-four hours’ rations, batteries, spare ammo – which they could grab and go if compromised.

  That done, Jaeger and Narov set about ensuring that any exposed skin was streaked with mud and dirt, to break up the human form. Once they had finished the DIY camo, they stood nose-to-toe, scrutinising each other minutely. She was barely an inch shorter than him, and it was easy enough to check for any exposed skin that might have been missed. As he did so, Jaeger found himself catching her gaze.

  Narov’s ice-blue eyes betrayed not the slightest hint of emotion: not excitement, not trepidation and certainly not fear. They were about to step into the heart of the narco gang’s territory, and capture would lead to a whole world of horror and pain.

  In fact, it would be much better not to allow yourself to get captured. Better to save a final bullet for yourself.

  But Narov appeared to be not the slightest bit fazed.

  If he hadn’t known her better, Jaeger would have worried that she was in shock or denial. But he’d seen her like this before: suffused with an empty-seeming calm. It made you wonder if anyone was at home. And then, in an instant, she’d transform into a lightning-fast killer, as if some switch had been flicked inside her head.

  It was weird. But that was Narov. And Raff was right: on a CTR, she made for perfect company.

  They did a final check of their kit, making certain nothing would clatter or clunk as they moved about. Anything that threatened to make the slightest noise was coated in layers of khaki gaffer tape, deadening it.

  When they were done, they could move silently as panthers.

  Finally they settled upon some comms-under-duress key words. If either was captured and forced to make contact, they needed some seemingly normal phrase to insert into their messages. Otherwise, with a gun held to their heads, they could be forced to call for a rescue helo, luring it straight into a trap.

  Key words sorted, and with the evening shadows lengthening, Jaeger gave the signal to move out. All knew the plan. As far as possible, the CTR would be done silently, without a word being spoken and using hand signals only.

  Silent as ghosts, the four flitted through the trees. They reached a point set a hundred metres back from the fringes of Dodge – the drop-off point for Raff, who would be acting as their backstop.

  As they crept closer to the clearing, Jaeger rolled out a length of paracord. This was their insurance policy: he and Narov could trace it back to Raff’s position, moving in utter silence and darkness.

  The sights and sounds of the narco base were beginning to bleed through now: slivers of light, the put-put of generators, plus the odd burst of Latino beat blaring distortedly through the trees.

  Alonzo took up position just inside the cover of the ragged fringe of jungle. He was here for two reasons. First, to provide fire support if it all went noisy. And second, to act as a marker to guide Narov and Jaeger back to their entry/exit point, from where they could trace the paracord back to Raff and their route to safety.

  Jaeger moved ahead in a low crouch, Narov following some five feet behind him. They crept a yard or two into the open and went down on one knee, utterly motionless. They needed to allow their eyes to adjust to the change in light: from the dark of the jungle, they were now at the outer limits of Dodge City’s makeshift street lighting.

  Before them stretched a patch of rough ground, littered with burnt tree stumps and waist-high bushes. Heaps of recently cut vegetation lay drying in the sun, ready for burning. From long experience, Jaeger knew that regular clearance and fire were the only ways to keep the jungle at bay.

  Eyes adjusted, he turned left and crept along the fringe of vegetation, counting his left footfalls. After a minute or so, he found what he was looking for. He went down on one knee again, Narov doing likewise at his shoulder.

  He nodded at a massive skeletal tree just to his left, glowing silver in the moonlight. It was strung with vines thick as a man’s thigh. ‘Okay, that’s our datum point.’

  ‘Got it. A hundred and forty paces.’

  ‘One forty,’ Jaeger confirmed. ‘We get here, it’s a hundred and forty paces north to Alonzo.’

  Fixing the datum point was crucial. Alonzo was a dark figure crouched amidst a fringe of trees. They’d never find him without an instantly recognisable feature that would lead them back to his exact location.

  From the skeletal tree, Jaeger set off due south, towards the point where the drainage ditches should intersect with the fringes of the forest, the lights of Dodge throwing an eerie halo into the dark sky.

  Sound drifted across to them. A burst of raucous laughter. Someone singing. The howl of a scooter burning down the nearest dirt track.

  Jaeger could feel the tension gripping him as they pushed into more open terrain. The adrenalin was pumping. His senses were incredibly heightened.

  A part of him loved it, as he sensed the danger crackling back and forth between the shadows. But he had no illusions as to what he and Narov were heading into.

  The two of them were pitting themselves against several hundred of El Padre’s gunmen. An anarchic drugs mafia in a land of chaotic lawlessness.

  As enemies went, it didn’t get much worse.

  33

  Ending up dead would be far better than being captured, Jaeger reflected. Although getting out alive and returning to Luke and Simon would be infinitely preferable. If Jaeger was taken alive, they’d torture him, body and soul, until he would be begging for his own death.

  As for Narov . . .

  Jaeger realised he felt strangely protective towards her. He could not let harm come to this extraordinary yet infuriating woman. In spite of everything, there was something bewitching about her; something that brought out in him the desire to break through her ice-cool shell.

  A thought struck him, as horrific as it was dark. If Narov was about to get captured, would he shoot her himself? He just didn’t know. All he could do was live the mission with one hundred per cent focus.

  Finding this shitty drainage ditch was crucial.

  By rights, it should lie just a few feet in front of them. Jaeger went down on one knee, turning to Narov. Their eyes met across the darkness. They didn’t need to speak. Her expression echoed what he felt. This is hellish, but it’s what we came here for. Just do it.

  They turned to face Dodge Central, settling down to observe. Being watchful was everything. They squatted shoulder to shoulder, rock still and utterly focused.

  Jaeger’s legs and back were soaked with perspiration, but worse were the mosquitoes. He was being eaten alive. There was nothing he could do about that. Sudden movement would be a dead giveaway. Swatting at a cloud of buzzing, biting insects was likely to invite a hail of bullets.

  ‘Two o’clock,’ Narov hissed. ‘Car. Hazards on.’

  ‘Seen.’

  Hammering down the main drag was a pickup truck, lights blaring. It had to mean something. But what? Was that code to get the narco gunmen on standby when a hostile force had been spotted? Or was the driver signalling that more bales of cocaine were needed at the airstrip?

  No way of knowing.

  Keep watchful.

  Silent.

  The preep-preep of cicadas echoed deafeningly in Jaeger’s ears. It provided the bass track to the heartbeat of Dodge: the pulse of the Latino dance tracks that were being pumped out with increasing gusto from the nearest of the bars.

  ‘Eleven o’clock,’ Narov hissed. ‘Airstrip. Movement.’

  Jaeger swung his eyes around. Sure enough, a group of males were milling about on one side of the dirt strip. He counted around three dozen, all armed. Question was, what were they there for? To usher in a narco flight, or to mount up the gun trucks and come racing after Jaeger and his team?

  He couldn’t believe that they’d been detected, but it was crucial to be ready. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

  Jaeger signalled to Narov that they should move. In a low crouch, and hugging the earth, he turned north, creeping towards the dark heart of Dodge. The nearest buildings were no more than fifty feet away. His every sense was projected forward, focused on the potential threat.

  As a result, he almost tumbled into the ditch.

  He regained his balance at the last moment, then tentatively eased his leading foot forward, advancing with the slow, calculated movements of a predator. Ahead of him yawned a dark pit maybe five feet wide. He flicked his eyes down its length: it stretched dead straight right into the heart of Dodge.

  As Raff had suggested, perfect cover for executing a CTR.

  Two things struck Jaeger. First, the smell. He twitched his nostrils: something distinctly chemical, mixed with the rank scent of stagnant water and human faeces. Second, the lack of any noticeable reflection. A patch of still water normally mirrored the moon, stars or street lighting. Here, there was nothing. The ditch had to be coated in a thick scum.

  Jaeger pulled out a scarf made of a light khaki cotton, brought with him for this very purpose. On an Afghan mission in 2001, his SAS squadron had been tasked to snatch an HVT – high-value target – from a heavily defended compound. A veritable fortress.

  They’d needed a way in that would take the defenders by utter surprise. As a captain commanding D Squadron’s mountain troop, Jaeger had chosen what he deemed was the best option: a sewer of sorts; an open ditch that ran beneath one of the walls, emptying into a river. The lads hadn’t thanked him for that one.

  Before entering, they had wrapped their faces in shemags; traditional Arab headscarves. It had helped filter out the stench. He and Narov did the same now. When they were done, only their eyes showed above the swathe of cloth.

  Without a word, Jaeger turned, placed his hands on the side of the ditch and lowered himself in.

  34

  The crawl through the ditch had been grim, even by Jaeger’s standards.

  For the most part he’d been fighting back the gag reflex, as unidentified things bobbed and hissed on the rank surface. There was one upside: this place had to be so toxic that nothing else would surely venture into its putrid depths.

  Jaeger dreaded to think what prolonged immersion was doing to him and Narov. They were probably going to grow an extra head. But there had been no other way.

  He figured the ditch served a dual purpose: it was Dodge City’s main sewer and drain, plus the coca refineries dumped their used chemicals here. Though it was largely stagnant, he figured there had to be a net outflow at the far end, where the toxic crap drained into the jungle.

  But right now his senses were focused very much elsewhere.

  Inch by inch he raised his head towards the lip of the ditch. The noise here was deafening: to his right, the bars were cranking out the Latino beat. He could feel the sound waves pulsing through the shitty water.

  As he slipped above the lip, he sensed Narov right beside him. Two heads emerged into the open, two sets of eyes behind gaping gun barrels. Each chose a 180-degree arc to scan.