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

  The fuse had been lit.

  He was no expert, but he knew enough to envisage what was about to happen. When the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs had been dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they had been detonated several hundred feet above the cities. That had maximised the immediate destructive power of the blasts.

  By contrast, the first of Kammler’s INDs would be detonated at ground level. The blast effect would be lessened, but conversely the radioactive contamination would be increased, because the radiation wouldn’t disperse in the air. Those parts of the cities that weren’t flattened would be rendered uninhabitable for decades.

  Hundreds of thousands – maybe millions – would die: either an instant death from the blast, or a lingering one from radiation poisoning. That alone was some achievement.

  It had taken seven decades to get to this point.

  The humiliation of the Third Reich was about to be avenged.

  And once Kammler’s gunmen had finished off Jaeger and his team, he would slip away to another place of hiding. He had many.

  It was all coming together, despite the damage inflicted here by a few desperate individuals.

  Such was war, Kammler reflected.

  Plans evolved as necessity dictated.

  And revenge truly was a dish best served cold.

  81

  There was a squawk of static in Jaeger’s earpiece. Message incoming.

  ‘Going dark,’ Raff confirmed.

  Seconds later, the dull, rhythmic thud of the generator ceased. Raff had considered a few options for stopping it: blowing it up, cutting the wires, slicing through the fuel pipe. But in the circumstances – and once he’d picked the lock on the generator shed – it was just as easy to press the STOP button.

  Sure, Kammler might send out his gunmen to get it restarted, but to do so they’d have to leave the bunker’s entrance, which any second now was going to get hosed down by Alonzo. And the big African American wasn’t exactly short of ammo: Jaeger and Raff had handed over all their remaining 40mm grenade rounds.

  Screw it, Raff told himself. He ripped off the generator’s fuel hose and stuffed it in his pocket. Now it definitely wouldn’t start.

  Raff’s radio message had been the signal. As Alonzo opened fire, the noise of the blasts echoed through the stunted tree cover. Jaeger figured Kammler had set his command bunker here, in the densest thicket of bush, so as to hide it from the air.

  Well, thanks to Hing, they’d found it anyway.

  Jaeger glanced over his shoulder and saw Hing give a reassuring thumbs-up. He added a tug of the earlobe, which in this part of the world signified that all was well.

  Hing struck Jaeger as being remarkably cool under such circumstances. But then you didn’t exactly get wrapped in cotton wool in the People’s Liberation Army. Having found himself working for Kammler and enduring whatever horrors that had entailed, the man would have a core of inner toughness.

  Raff rejoined them, and they crept closer to their intended point of entry. The skylight proved to be perfectly disguised amongst the vegetation. Without Hing, they would never have found it.

  It allowed natural light to enter the bunker complex, and there was also a thin metal ladder running from the skylight down to the floor inside. Clearly it was designed to act as an emergency exit in case of fire or attack.

  In his left hand, Jaeger cradled a grenade. He counted down the seconds. When he figured they were long enough into Alonzo’s assault, he crept forward, pulled the pin and rolled the grenade across the skylight.

  By the time he heard it come to a stop, he was dashing for cover. The standard NATO fragmentation grenade had a four-second fuse, and a lethal rage of five metres. The delay gave Jaeger just enough time to go to ground. Moments later, there was a deafening crack, and the howl of shrapnel cut through the air.

  The team were instantly on their feet, sprinting for the breach. Jaeger reached it first, dropping some seven feet through the shattered opening, aiming for a clear patch of floor in the smoke-filled interior.

  He hadn’t even bothered with the ladder. He needed speed and surprise. He landed in a crouch, his P228’s flashlight sweeping the room as he steadied himself. He blanked all else from his mind, scanning for human figures.

  He panned right with his weapon, the torchlight dancing in the ghostly swirls of smoke. The light caught on a form slumped over a desk.

  Kammler.

  82

  Behind him Jaeger heard a second pair of boots thump down. He knew instinctively that it was Raff, and that he would be sweeping the room on the opposite side. A third figure vaulted in beside them: Hing. Narov had to be bringing up the rear.

  ‘Kammler at my eleven o’clock,’ Jaeger intoned into his SELEX. The bastard looked injured, or at the very least stunned by the blast. ‘We need him alive. I repeat: alive.’

  It was vital they captured Kammler living, breathing and sentient. He was the key to stopping all of this. His knowledge. His say-so. His authority. His orders to call back those sent to wreak devastation and vengeance. Or if not, his leads so they could hunt the bombers down.

  Jaeger spotted a target. To the far right of Kammler a figure was reeling about, senses dulled by the blast, as he struggled to bring his weapon – a Type 79 sub-machine gun – into the aim. Jaeger nailed him with his torch beam: phzzzt, phzzzt, phzzzt.

  Two shots to the body and one to the head, just to make sure he was finished.

  ‘Enemy down,’ he breathed into his SELEX.

  Inside his head a voice said, ‘Three.’ He’d fired three rounds from the P228’s thirteen-round magazine, so ten remaining.

  A fourth figure dropped in beside him. Narov, weapon at the ready. They swept the room, seeking further targets. As they did so, Jaeger marvelled at what they had stumbled into here. Banks of computer terminals and stacks of complex communications gear lined the walls.

  The place resembled an ops room for a small but very tech-savvy army.

  Jaeger noticed Kammler trying to move. ‘Taking Kammler,’ he barked.

  As he broke from his stance and began to steal across the room, a figure darted out of cover, weapon raised at the shoulder.

  Raff nailed him before he could squeeze off a shot.

  ‘Enemy down,’ he breathed calmly.

  The big Maori was in his element. He was never more at home than when he was fighting in the darkness and closing with the bad guys at close quarters.

  Jaeger moved in on Kammler warily. But as he stole ahead, keeping light on his feet, a figure flashed past on his right-hand side. In a blur of speed, Hing launched himself at Kammler – his former boss, jailer and tormentor – hands reaching like claws to rip the man’s eyes out.

  Kammler moved surprisingly fast for someone of his advanced years. He whipped up the compact form of a Type 92 handgun and let rip. Two 9mm slugs hammered into Hing, stopping the man dead in his tracks. He went down hard.

  As Kammler went to pivot around with his weapon, Jaeger fired, blasting the gun out of his grasp. Moments later, he smacked him around the head with the butt of his P228, Kammler reeling and collapsing against the wall.

  Jaeger grabbed him by the hair, jerking his head backwards. There was a cut across his cheekbone, but otherwise he seemed merely stunned. He kicked the man’s legs out from beneath him, Kammler dropping like a sack of shit.

  ‘Room clear,’ Raff’s voice intoned over the radio.

  ‘Room clear,’ Narov echoed.

  ‘Secure the entrance,’ Jaeger ordered. ‘Plus Hing’s down. Check Hing.’

  He spent a brief moment frisking Kammler, making sure that he wasn’t armed, then knelt until they were eye to eye.

  ‘Hello, Mr Kammler. You invited us to drop in. Well, here we are.’

  He brought the barrel of his P228 into Kammler’s face, until the muzzle was jammed hard against the man’s bleeding cheekbone.

  ‘Got a few questions.’ He ground the muzzle closer, blood starting to seep round the hard edges of the weapon. ‘I’m going to ask this only once . . . where are Ruth Jaeger and Peter Miles?’

  Kammler’s face twisted into a cruel smile. ‘You’re too late. To save them. To stop any of this. Heil Hitler, and long live the Thousand Year Reich.’

  Jaeger took a step back and kicked Kammler square in the chest. He reeled backwards.

  Jaeger glanced at Narov. ‘He’s all yours.’

  Jaeger eyed Raff, who was bent over the fallen form of Hing. The big Maori shook his head. Fearless to the last, Hing had died doing what he’d vowed to do – going after Kammler.

  Jaeger moved towards the doorway. ‘Right: let’s clear this place.’

  He and Raff eased themselves through the command bunker’s doorway and out into the pitch-dark corridor beyond.

  83

  Narov settled down in a seat facing Kammler, getting comfortable.

  This was a moment she was not going to rush.

  She’d waited a very long time.

  He was fastened to his chair in a similar way to that in which she had secured Isselhorst in his house in the Heidelberg woods. If anything, Kammler was even more comprehensively constrained. Not only was his body taped to the steel frame, but she’d also wrapped his entire face and head with gaffer tape, leaving only a thin strip for his eyes – the windows onto the soul.

  She needed the eyes free so she could better gauge how high the terror needle was pointing.

  She’d cut a small hole in the tape around Kammler’s nose area, just large enough for him to breathe. Otherwise, he was enshrouded completely.

  Just as she wanted him.

  ‘So, you know who I am,’ she began in that calm, eerie monotone that was so universally unnerving; utterly devoid of feeling. Mercy, compassion, empathy – her voice lacked it all, and it was doubly unsettling for it.

  ‘You can nod to agree with what I say,’ she continued. ‘Oh, you cannot nod? Well then, you can blink with your eyes. One blink means you agree. Two blinks mean you do not. Blink once, now, to show me you understand.’

  Kammler didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid.

  Without warning, Narov lashed out with stunning power, swinging her pistol around in a ‘ridge-hand strike’, a martial arts technique that brought the topside of the weapon crashing into the side of Kammler’s head.

  The force of the blow was such that it sent the man and chair toppling over. Of course, there was no scream from Kammler, for his mouth was firmly taped shut. Narov reached down and dragged him up into a sitting position, then settled before him again. As she did so, a series of muffled shots echoed through the darkened corridor: no doubt Jaeger and Raff, going about their clearance work.

  There was little sign of injury to the side of Kammler’s head, but that was mainly because it was a mass of gaffer tape. There could be any amount of damage below.

  ‘So, we try again.’ Narov intoned, her voice still chillingly flat and unemotional. ‘Blink once to indicate that you understand.’

  Kammler blinked.

  ‘Good. Now, I have only one question for you. You will answer it truthfully, or you will experience suffering of a level you would never imagine possible.’ She paused for effect. ‘Do you understand?’

  Kammler blinked once.

  ‘Apart from those we have just destroyed in your laboratory, do you have any other INDs in existence?’

  Narov wasn’t particularly worried about radiation leaking from the lab. Uranium was not nearly as radioactive as people seemed to believe. Only when a nuclear device was properly detonated did it produce a cloud of lethal fallout.

  By way of answer, Kammler blinked twice.

  ‘There are no more INDs? Are you certain? Please think very, very carefully. You see, we are only really just getting started . . .’

  Kammler blinked once.

  ‘To be clear, Mr Kammler, there are no INDs anywhere in the world that you control? They were all here?’

  Kammler blinked once.

  At that moment, a voice rang out from the far end of the corridor. ‘Falk Konig! Falk Konig coming through!’

  Narov spun in her seat as a pathetic figure stumbled through the doorway. Kammler’s son was a pale shadow of the man that Narov had grown close to barely a few months ago. Back then, the German-educated conservationist had been running Kammler’s private game reserve at Katavi, in East Africa.

  Falk had been something of a hero figure to Narov, despite the blood that ran through his veins. Disregarding that fact – no one gets to choose their parents – his tireless efforts to safeguard Africa’s big game had won her undying respect. The two of them had bonded over their mutual love of animals – the elephants and rhino first and foremost – even amidst the dark secrets of the Katavi reserve.

  Kammler’s son had rebelled against the family’s legacy. His taking a different surname was all part of an effort to cut the ties to their Nazi past. But when Hank Kammler disappeared, Falk Konig had been branded an accessory to his father’s crime, and he too had become a global fugitive.

  A hunted man.

  Only Narov – and Jaeger to a certain extent – had chosen to believe in him; to keep the faith.

  When she and Falk had first met, he had been a dashing six-foot-two wildlife warrior, who flew daring sorties across the African bush tracking the poaching gangs. His shock of wild blonde hair and straggly beard had lent him a somewhat hippyish air – an exotic if dishevelled eco-warrior look.

  Or so Narov had thought. The figure that stood before her now was a pale shadow of that. His hair was matted with dried blood, his eye sockets were sunken and dark-ringed, and he hobbled on an injured leg.

  Narov felt a surge of sympathy for him, quickly followed by a stab of unease.

  Jaeger must have sent him here for a reason.

  No doubt the son knew something of his father’s dark secrets.

  84

  Narov got to her feet. ‘Take my chair. You look like you need it.’

  Konig sank into the proffered seat. For a moment he stared at the mummified figure opposite – his biological father – in horror.

  Then he shook his head. ‘You brought this on yourself, Father. You would not listen to anyone, myself included, and now you’re finished. It is all finished.’

  A flash of defiance burnt through Kammler’s eyes, mixed with something that Narov hadn’t expected: a fleeting look of triumph. Of victory.

  It was a look he couldn’t hide.

  But what did Kammler have to feel triumphant about? Unless . . .

  ‘Tell me,’ Narov urged Konig. ‘Is there anything he could have done to ensure we cannot stop him?’

  Konig shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He brought me here almost as a hostage. I was being hunted; he offered me some kind of sanctuary. I was innocent of any crime, but damned because he is my father. So I came with him. What choice did I have? He said he would share with me his new dream if I could be loyal. I acted that part. For a while. But once I realised what he actually intended, I tried to call you.’

  He cast a glance at his father. ‘He grew increasingly suspicious. Paranoid. He cut me off from his inner circle and pretty much locked me away. But this much I do know. He was building eight devices, eight being the sacred number of the SS. And some have already been dispersed to their targets.’

  Narov glanced at Kammler. His eyes bulged with impotent rage. From that very look, she knew that he had lied to her, and that his son was telling the truth.

  ‘So, we have one or more INDs already at or near their targets?’ she queried. ‘Presumably he was waiting for all eight to be in place before a synchronised detonation?’

  Konig nodded. ‘Nothing else makes sense.’

  ‘Do we know the targets?’

  Konig shook his head. ‘He never said. But one thing he did boast about: he said that if you took a forty-kilo bomb and detonated it over a nuclear power station, you would achieve meltdown, so increasing the destructive power exponentially.’

  As Konig spoke, his father had been making agonised noises from behind his gaffer-tape gag. Narov didn’t doubt that he was trying to stop his son selling the Kammler family’s secrets. Thank God Konig was a far better man than his father.

  ‘How has he delivered them?’ she probed. ‘To their targets?’

  ‘I can’t say. But nearly all nuclear power stations sit on the coast, as they need water for cooling purposes. Even a forty-kilo device is relatively small in size. You could sail a pleasure yacht to the location, anchor offshore and wait for the signal to detonate. It’s weird, but most of those nuclear stations don’t even have an exclusion zone. They’re sitting targets.’

  Narov turned to Kammler. ‘You lied to me,’ she began, in a gentle whisper. ‘I warned you that if you lied, it would get much worse. Now I need you to tell me where your INDs have been sent, and how we stop them.’

  She pulled her chair closer. ‘I am going to enjoy this next bit. And trust me, you will answer.’

  85

  Kammler stared back at Narov through the gaffer-tape mask, his eyes burning with hatred.

  She delved into her daysack, pulling out a small medical pack. She removed two syringes – the same ones with which she had recently threatened Isselhorst – and held them up where he could see them.

  ‘Two syringes,’ she announced. ‘One full of suxamethonium chloride, a paralytic. The other contains naloxone hydrochloride, an anti-opioid. I will spare you the complex science. The first is a respiratory depressant: it stops you breathing. Completely. The second reverses the effect.’

  She stared into Kammler’s eyes. ‘Too long under the first, and you suffocate to death. Not enough of the second soon enough, and the effect is irreversible. But you know the best part of it? You are fully conscious the entire time, and you get to experience in clarity what it feels like to suffocate and die.’