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

  Raff shrugged. ‘Gone to RV with the incoming shipment. What they figure is a crateload of HEU.’

  Jaeger nodded. ‘My thoughts exactly.’ He flicked his wrist and glanced at his watch. ‘Time to check in with Falkenhagen.’

  He disconnected the Thuraya satphone from its portable solar charger, punched out a short message, encoded it and sent it in data burst: Sitrep: in position. Update?

  The two men stared at the Thuraya’s screen, waiting for a response. Generally Miles got back pretty much instantly. A few minutes later, there was the ping of an incoming message.

  It wasn’t from Miles. Instead, the caller ID showed it was from Brooks.

  Jaeger opened it: Falkenhagen compromised. Condor missing. Your position believed blown. Take soonest direct action to sabotage Kammler. Urgent: make contact voice comms earliest possible.

  Jaeger had to read the message twice before he could even begin to grasp its import. Surely it couldn’t be true? Condor was Peter Miles’s code name. If Brooks’s message meant what it appeared to, the Falkenhagen bunker had been penetrated and Miles was gone. Plus their mission had been blown to Kammler and his people.

  Shit. Jaeger turned to Raff. ‘Mate, what the fuck?’

  ‘Only one thing to do: call Brooks.’

  Jaeger punched speed dial for the CIA director’s secure line – the one on which he’d assured Jaeger he would always be available.

  ‘Jaeger?’ a voice answered. ‘No easy way to say this, but the shit’s hit the fan. A force of gunmen hit Falkenhagen. The place is a mess. No guessing who’s responsible. Miles is missing. MIA, KIA – we don’t know. We have every reason to believe your mission is compromised, your position known. You’re going to have to speed things up down there.’

  Jaeger cursed. It was worse even than he’d imagined. He felt as if he’d had the rug whipped out from under his feet while going five rounds with Mike Tyson.

  ‘How did they even find Falkenhagen? Penetrate the security?’

  ‘No idea. They must have had someone on the inside.’

  Jaeger’s mind was reeling. ‘So we’ve no idea who we can trust? Kammler’s people could be anywhere – anyone – amongst us?’

  There was a momentary pause. Then: ‘Jaeger, I figure I can trust you. And I figure I can trust your team. And rest assured, buddy, you sure as hell can trust me.’

  It was Jaeger’s turn to pause. Brooks could be the one who had betrayed them. Sold out Falkenhagen; sold out Miles. But that didn’t make any sense. Brooks turned? From all Jaeger knew of the man, it didn’t add up.

  A look of steel came into his eyes. ‘Okay, so what do we do?’

  ‘In essence, nothing’s changed. You’re there. You have your team. Kammler’s very likely onto you. But he’s got to get to you. And before he does, we – you – have to stop him. Finish it. Finish it before he finishes you.’

  ‘So we’re a hundred per cent on our own, right?’

  ‘You always were. You’re in China: apart from intel, I can’t give you jack in terms of backup. You know what you gotta do. Finish Kammler. Nail that goddam sonofabitch once and for all.’

  ‘Got it. Out.’

  Jaeger killed the call. Expect the unexpected: it was his mantra. But he’d never for one moment imagined anything like this.

  He eyed Raff. ‘How much of that did you get?’

  ‘Most of it.’ A beat. ‘But here’s the thing: those two dozen guys Kammler just sent out? They ain’t gone to RV with the shipment. Mate, they’re coming after us.’

  ‘Like how?’

  ‘Kammler knows we’re watching. If he sends his guys out on foot to comb the valley, we see them coming. This way, they drive east until they’re out of sight, pull over, climb to the valley rim and come at us from the rear.’

  ‘Across the snowfield?’

  ‘Yeah. From where we least expect it. From where we’re not watching.’

  ‘So they’ll be moving on skis?’

  ‘Probably, yeah.’

  ‘Right. We go out and meet them head on. Fire with fire.’

  ‘Hit them where they’ll least expect us.’

  ‘Not us.’ Jaeger eyed the scope. ‘I need you here on watch. The priority has to be to get the tungsten bomb in. Eliminate the main threat. Do everything possible to avoid Kammler’s people. Last thing we need is for it to go noisy before we hit the kill button.’

  Raff’s face hardened. ‘I’d rather go out fighting.’

  ‘No, mate, I need you here. Safe pair of hands to backstop the team. That tungsten bomb arrives, someone’s got to call it. Trigger the blast. That’s you. Got it?’

  ‘Got it.’

  60

  Bent double, Jaeger scuttled through the brush and scrub above the OP, flitting from shadow to shadow. It was vital that he moved fast whilst also ensuring that he didn’t give their position away. He ducked under the camouflage netting giving access to the snow cave.

  ‘Heads up. Falkenhagen’s been hit,’ he hissed. ‘Miles is missing. We’re very likely compromised.’ His eyes flitted around the cave, searching for something. ‘Irina, I’m going to need you to lend me your sniper rifle. I’m going out to secure our rear. Take this.’

  He handed her his Diemaco. He could tell that she and Alonzo were still in shock as they tried to grasp the enormity of what had happened. As he continued speaking, he grabbed his skis and slotted his boots into them.

  ‘Look lively, guys. Depending which route they’ve taken, Kammler’s people could be here any moment. Narov, join Raff on watch. Alonzo, set up a position looking east over the snowfields. We figure Kammler’s sent out a party to take us from the rear. I’m going out to hit them first. And make no mistake: getting the tungsten bomb in remains our absolute priority.’

  Narov tried to protest, but Jaeger silenced her with a gesture. ‘No buts: I’m a stronger skier. No time to argue. Let’s get moving.’

  Dragunov strapped to his back, Jaeger set out east, skiing hard and fast across the moonlit snow. Thankfully, he’d only recently waxed his skis. He’d done so in order to help kill the boredom, but it was good that he had. They whispered across the snow.

  The night sky was crystal clear. The moon was almost full, throwing the surroundings into eerie light and shadow. The illumination would be both a help and a hindrance. Jaeger would try to use it and the natural environment to his advantage. Old lessons that never died.

  His mind raced. The two SUVs packed with gunmen had been lost from sight around the far end of the valley at around 0330 hours local time. He figured it would take them a good ninety minutes to scale the lower end of the gorge, especially with all the kit they would be carrying. It was 0430 now, so they could be cresting the ridge at any time.

  They’d then have to ski west-south-west for a kilometre or so to bring them into the OP position from its rear. Jaeger figured he had twenty minutes maximum to execute the kind of deception he had in mind. He upped his pace. He could feel the sweat dripping down his back and soaking his silk inner layer as he pushed on.

  Part of him felt physically drained. The lack of food, no doubt. But another part of him was fired up on adrenalin, and he felt as if he could ski like the wind. He’d have to if his plan was going to work.

  The snowfield rose ahead of him gently, cresting out at a distant ridge. He was at his best going uphill. Few skiers could beat him in a climb. He just needed to make that ridge alive, and he should be good to execute stage two of his plan.

  He halted when he figured he was some 500 metres short of the high ground. There was little point in taking cover, not for what he now intended. He turned and faced the way he had come, back towards the valley. He drew his pistol – a Sig Sauer P228 – and chambered a round.

  He was a white figure standing amongst white snow on a moonlit night. They were unlikely simply to see him, and he couldn’t think of any other way to draw their attention. He’d fire a shot into the air. As if it was intended to alert the rest of his team, positioned higher up the slope, to the appearance of the enemy.

  Alert, hyped up, muscles coiled tense as a spring, Jaeger waited.

  He checked his watch. Any time now.

  Sure enough, the first figures hove into view.

  Kammler’s team were moving in single file, the lead skier beating a track through the snow for the others to follow; disciplined professionals, mercenaries no doubt, searching the terrain to either side of them as they went.

  They clearly knew that Jaeger and his team had set their OP on the high ground, but they didn’t know exactly where. Or at least that was Jaeger’s gamble.

  They kept moving towards him.

  Like fish in a barrel.

  Jaeger’s heart was thumping. He knew the time had come. Time to go overt.

  He raised his pistol and fired.

  61

  The shot rent the air above Jaeger’s head, the hollow thud of the subsonic round echoing across the snow.

  The line of figures came to an abrupt halt.

  As they did, Jaeger turned and recommenced his line of march, making for the high ground. He was banking on several factors now. One, he was the better skier. Two, none of the enemy would have brought a long-range weapon with them. You wouldn’t tend to, not when you planned to ambush a small force in a hidden OP.

  From behind him he heard the harsh crackle of gunfire. Rounds snarled past to either side, kicking up angry plumes in the snow. He pushed ahead, knowing that his very life, plus those of his team, depended upon it.

  He began to zigzag across the snow to confuse the gunmen’s aim. The very worst thing would be one of them scoring a lucky hit and disabling him.

  Eventually the fire from behind petered out.

  He risked a glance over his shoulder.

  The dozen figures had slung their weapons and turned in line to follow him. In a sense, Jaeger didn’t blame them. Where else could a lone figure like him be heading, other than to join the rest of his team at their OP? Nothing else would make sense. Track Jaeger and the gunmen would bag the lot of them – or so they had to be thinking.

  The way ahead was a mass of unmarked snow. Jaeger mapped out a route through the contours, one designed to maximise speed. All he had to do was reach the ridgeline ahead of his pursuers.

  He drove himself onwards until his thigh and calf muscles were burning, his lungs heaving.

  At last he crested the high point. For a few seconds he skied onwards, as if continuing his flight. Once he was out of view of his pursuers, he dropped down, clipped off his skis and crawled back to the ridge. Unslinging the Dragunov, he brought it to his shoulder and eased himself over the lip of rock and ice. The slope below came into view close up, via the Dragunov’s PSO-1 4x magnification telescopic sight.

  At first glance, the scope’s reticule – its eyepiece sighting system – looked complicated. The horizontal crosshair was joined at the middle by a series of vertical arrowheads or chevrons, each spaced a millimetre or so apart. On the bottom right of the scope were two fine lines in the shape of a funnel laid on its side. Five marks were inscribed along it, like the lines on a ruler, numbered 2, 4, 6, 8, 10.

  Like most former communist bloc kit, however, the scope was actually simplicity itself. And fortunately, the Regiment had taught Jaeger how to use just about every weapon known to man.

  You placed the funnel marker over the target until it snugly head to toe. At that point you read off the number, as Jaeger did now: 8. The lead enemy gunman was thus 800 yards away. He raised the rifle slightly, getting the topmost chevron lined up with the target’s chest. Each chevron represented 200 metres extra distance.

  Like that, he adjusted for the bullet drop over 800 metres. He calmed his breathing, closed his eyes, and settled. Just for a beat. Then he opened his eyes again, took one long, slow breath, and held it for an instant, confirming his aim.

  Sniper training. Never hold your breath for too long or your body would begin to shake ever so slightly. One of the key principles that had been ingrained in him. Instinctive by now.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  There was the sharp report of the weapon firing, and the lead figure crumpled into the snow. Instantly Jaeger went about acquiring his next target. The column of men had hit the deck, dropping to one knee and unslinging their weapons. There were a few sustained bursts of fire, but they fell well short of the mark.

  At this range Jaeger had them pinned down in the open and they knew it.

  He had to keep each move calm and deliberate, although he knew how thin the line between life and death was. The only thing keeping him alive was the distance.

  Via his scope, he had recognised the weapons Kammler’s men were carrying. Each was equipped with a Chinese-made Type 79 folding-stock sub-machine gun. A good weapon and perfect for close-quarter combat, but accurate up to no more than two hundred yards.

  Jaeger fired again. A second figure keeled over. Knowing they had no option but to move, the ten surviving gunmen rose to their feet and started to fan out, trying to rush his position. All twelve had to die. He couldn’t afford for even one of them to get away and raise the alarm with Kammler.

  But even as he steeled himself, Jaeger was struck by an utterly chilling thought. He’d been lying here repeating the mantra ‘one bullet, one kill’. But he’d missed something. Something vital.

  The Dragunov carried a ten-round magazine . . . and there were twelve gunmen coming after him. And in his haste, he’d only grabbed the one magazine.

  For a fleeting second, he wondered why he’d volunteered to do this. It had been vital to draw Kammler’s gunmen away from the OP. But he could have sent Raff. Or Narov. Or Alonzo.

  He knew the answer. Sure, he was the best skier, but it was more that he’d never ask one of his team to do something that he wasn’t willing to do himself.

  If they were going to survive this, it would take a gamble. And so he was here, with ten gunmen to kill and with only eight bullets to do it.

  At best, there was only one way this was going to end: sooner or later, he would have two of Kammler’s men on his tail, each armed with a Type 79 machine gun, and he’d be all out of rounds on the Dragunov.

  And Jaeger knew that no pistol was a match for that kind of weaponry.

  62

  Thirty minutes into the race of his life, Jaeger saw one of his pursuers break away.

  He’d taken out eight of them with the Dragunov, two rounds having missed their target. Kammler’s four remaining men had dispersed across the snowfield in an effort to outflank him. One had now fallen away, but the remaining three were slick operators and none seemed about to give up the chase.

  Jaeger reminded himself that they would be well fed, whereas he was half starved. The pursuers kept pace with him, matching ski thrust with ski thrust as he blazed a trail through the moon-washed whiteness. Up ridgelines, down valleys and across snowfields the race continued.

  Inch by painful inch he felt the hunters gaining. He realised his greatest problem now: he was beating a path through the snow for his pursuers to follow, which had to make it easier on them. He was drenched with sweat, his lungs heaving fit to burst.

  Still he powered onwards. He pulled ahead a small distance on the steeper climbs, only to have his pursuers close the gap again on the descents. Knowing it made sense to seek the higher ground, he veered south, his back to the lake, and began to climb into the mountains.

  He reached a vast expanse of fresh snowfall, reminding himself of the avalanche risk. For a split second, he was back in the Alps, guiding some soldiers along the Kuffner Ridge on the Mont Blanc massif, assessing the danger as he moved.

  He dragged his mind back to the harsh reality of here and now. An avalanche was the least of his worries. He was running out of options fast. He couldn’t keep skiing forever, and with no more Dragunov rounds, the odds were not good.

  And then he was struck by a flash of inspiration: maybe there was a way to finish this.

  As he reached the top of the slope, he crouched low and removed a grenade from one of the pouches he wore slung around his belt. He turned and checked behind him.

  The slope was the perfect angle and the snow pack fresh and deep.

  Below, the three figures were surging up the diagonal path that Jaeger had cut across the snowfield, four hundred feet below and closing fast.

  He waited until they were directly beneath him before pulling the pin and letting the retainer clip fly, then hurling the grenade in a high arc. It landed hard a good forty feet downslope, a puff of snow marking where it had disappeared into the soft whiteness.

  Jaeger turned and dug deep with his ski poles, pushing into a powerful traverse. From behind him there was the dull thud of the grenade’s detonation, the thick snow muffling the blast. He felt the shock wave of the explosion beneath his feet, and pushed on, skiing for all he was worth.

  For a second or so nothing happened, and then the slope behind him started to move.

  There was a dull crack as the surface broke, a chasm opening where the entire expanse at the epicentre of the blast began to surge downhill. As the snowfield collapsed across an ever-widening front, it pulled more of the mass above into churning chaos.

  The noise of the cataclysm grew to a thunderous roar. Jaeger figured he’d put enough distance between himself and his handiwork to stop, and he turned to see a boiling wave of jumbled snow and blocks of ice tearing downhill like some kind of frozen tsunami, with a force that would carry everything before it.

  Or not quite everything.

  Of the three figures that had been in pursuit, one had somehow made it across the front of the avalanche before it could claim him. It was some feat of skiing. The others were swept away, arms and legs flailing helplessly as they were buried under hundreds of tons of snow.