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

  Jaeger had seen the imposing bulk of his adversary. He’d also seen and heard the other gunmen a few vital seconds before they had put in an appearance. And by that time, he was pretty much out of the range of their .22s.

  They’d loosed off several shots down the tunnel, but Jaeger had proved a far faster runner. He figured he knew why. Each of the mystery gunmen had been laden down with a massive pack. Those, Jaeger suspected, contained whatever the men were removing from the tunnel.

  Once back at St Georgen, he’d made it clear to Uncle Joe that they needed to get the hell out of town. They’d paid for their rooms, made their hurried excuses to the owner – a family emergency back in England – and hit the road.

  There would be no returning to the Zum Turken hotel. Jaeger would phone and offer the same kind of explanation. Instead, they’d stop at some anonymous chain – a Holiday Inn maybe – and try and digest the full import of his discoveries.

  He’d made the call to the Austrian cops from a phone booth on the A1. By then, he and Uncle Joe were well on their way, the Range Rover eating up the miles. He’d given a short report about the mass killing, but refused to provide his name. He’d taken basic precautions to disguise his voice, presuming all such calls were recorded.

  Jaeger just had a feeling, a hunch, an instinctive sense that he was being pulled back towards a dark past that he’d been trying to put behind him. It was his soldier’s sixth sense, and as Uncle Joe had reminded him, he should never ignore it.

  They’d pushed on across the German border. On the face of it they were heading home. But it would be just as easy to turn a little further north and east and make for the Falkenhagen Bunker, the makeshift headquarters of the Secret Hunters. But only if whatever they might discover on the memory cards from the tunnel seemed to warrant such a diversion.

  As luck would have it, the first opportunity to stop proved to be at the Munich Park Hilton, on the outskirts of the city. Once they had checked into their room, Jaeger made sure that Uncle Joe was comfortable, settling him in an armchair, amply propped up with pillows. ‘You good? It may take some time. Each of the cards can hold several hours.’

  Uncle Joe forced a smile. He was tired, but he was also incredibly resilient. ‘Will, my boy, I’m fine. Let’s see what you’ve got here.’

  Jaeger pulled out his MacBook Air and placed it on the desk. With a feeling of foreboding, he slotted the first memory card into the laptop’s port. He tried several times, but no joy. It wouldn’t open. It must have been too badly damaged.

  The second card looked somewhat more promising. Jaeger slid it in. On the third attempt, an icon popped onto his screen: ‘SONY XDCAM’. He double-clicked the icon, his MacBook automatically pulling up the video-player screen, then clicked the play button.

  A ghostly image appeared. It showed a figure seated in the tunnel entrance, giving an interview. Jaeger had little idea who it was, but he recognised him as one of the bloodied corpses lying deep in the tunnel’s interior.

  It was like the man had come back from the dead.

  From his dress and manner, it was clear he was some kind of expert; a World War II historian no doubt. He was speaking German, but even so Jaeger could tell by his hand gestures that he had been one excited interviewee.

  He used the digital menu to flip through the scenes. They were deep inside the mountain now. The tunnel was lit by powerful film lights, set on tripods to either side. Figures worked at the slope using pickaxes and shovels to clear a wider path.

  Jaeger pointed at the pile of rubble. ‘See. By the time this was filmed, they’d already made the breakthrough.’

  Uncle Joe nodded. ‘The man giving the interview – was he speaking about whatever they had discovered?’

  ‘Most probably.’

  Jaeger spun through the footage at twelve-times speed. There was nothing much of note, until the screen went suddenly very dark. He stopped, and replayed the image at normal speed. All was seemingly normal, until a harsh yelling could be heard echoing down the tunnel.

  The words were in German and hard to catch, but the aggression and menace was clear. Moments later, the film lights were extinguished, as if by order. A few seconds after that, the camera was removed from its tripod, the image going wobbly as it was lowered towards the floor.

  Jaeger could sense hands flipping various switches, then the screen suddenly turned a weird, smudgy fluorescent green, producing an image that was instantly familiar.

  Even as he’d lowered it, the cameraman had flicked his camera on to night-filming mode. Jaeger recognised it instantly: it produced the same kind of grainy green image he’d experienced so often on elite operations when using NVGs – night-vision goggles.

  Crucially, as he’d placed it on the ground, the man had left the camera running. Given what he had been facing – the shock and fear of an assault by a gang of armed gunmen – Jaeger was amazed by his poise and bravery.

  Figures stepped into view: ghostly, menacing, sinister. They were dressed in black, with balaclavas covering their faces. Jaeger counted six of them. Two stood back, pistols at the ready, herding the camera crew and excavators against one wall, while a third started smashing apart the filming gear.

  Jaeger figured there was only a few seconds remaining before the image would die on him, and as yet there was nothing to give the barest hint as to the identity of the gunmen. Moments later, the camera gave a savage jerk as the blade of a shovel smashed into it, and the image went suddenly very dead.

  He replayed that section of footage several times, trying to glean something of value from the vital last minutes of film. There was something tugging at the edge of his consciousness. He was missing something. A vital clue. He knew it, and yet he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.

  Finally, he ejected the memory card and stared disconsolately at the blank screen. ‘Anything, Uncle Joe? Anything that strikes you?’

  No answer.

  He turned to check. His great-uncle had fallen asleep in his chair.

  Jaeger smiled to himself. He guessed the question could wait until morning.

  He suddenly felt utterly shattered. He lifted his uncle onto the bed, marvelling at how light his elderly frame was. Then he lay down on the floor and pulled a blanket over himself.

  Just like the old days, he thought. He’d revisit this enigma with a fresh head come morning.

  19

  Jaeger awoke sometime later. The stress and shock of the day had exhausted him. But now he sat bolt upright, the image of the nightmare playing through his mind.

  He’d been underwater. At sea. Fighting against a hated assailant. He’d already stabbed the man, using Irina Narov’s dagger, but his opponent just wouldn’t die. This was the man who had kidnapped Jaeger’s wife and child. Jaeger hated him as he would never have imagined possible.

  His opponent was massive and hugely powerful, and not the type to give in. That much Jaeger knew, for way back they had been on SAS selection together. Jaeger had passed, but the big man had crashed and burnt, and all because he’d tried to cheat by taking performance-enhancing drugs.

  It was Jaeger who had discovered that he was doping, and he was immediately binned.

  In that moment had been born a lifelong enmity, although Jaeger hadn’t realised it at the time. Hence why the big man had been so keen to come after Jaeger’s wife and child. Revenge. Sweet revenge. But not so sweet when Jaeger had finally tracked him down, driving the blade in deep.

  Steve Jones. Jaeger had left him entangled within a mass of writhing sharks driven wild by the smell of blood. A dead man, or so he had presumed. So why were those dark scenes coming back to haunt him now?

  A new set of images came unbidden into his head. He remembered how, as he’d swum towards the surface, he’d dropped Narov’s knife. An iconic commando fighting knife, the razor-sharp tapered blade had slipped from his grasp and sunk from view.

  But now he could see its fate somehow playing out before him: the knife drifting downwards . . . coming to rest in Steve Jones’s grasp . . . The big man using it to eviscerate the nearest shark, slicing its gut cavity open . . . The wounded animal spinning away voiding gouts of blood . . . the other sharks following.

  Blood was blood: the sharks didn’t care.

  And a final image: Steve Jones, one hand gripping his wounded neck, the other the knife, kicking for the surface.

  Jaeger flicked on the light. He sat for several seconds in utter silence. Jones alive? Was it even possible? And what had made him imagine all of this now?

  The answer came to him with a jolt. He roused himself and moved to the desk, powering up the laptop. He stared at the screen as he replayed the last few minutes of footage, showing the team of killers going about their murderous work.

  There. He punched pause. The image froze and he gazed at it in silent disbelief. There, strapped to the thigh of the largest of the mystery gunmen, was a Fairbairn–Sykes commando fighting knife, to give it its full name. The same knife that Irina Narov had carried, and Jaeger had let slip from his grasp in the sea.

  He lived by the mantra: Expect the unexpected. It was what had kept him alive all these years. But this – it just seemed so impossible.

  He pressed play, eyes glued to the movements of the hulking figure. There was little doubt about it any more: the bulging forearms and shoulders; the sheer power of the man as he smashed apart the film gear with his bare hands.

  The way his stance radiated rage and hatred; hatred and rage.

  No doubt about it: it was Jones.

  Jaeger killed the image, then sat back and tried to get his breathing under control. The realisation alone had set him hyperventilating. One thing was clear: if Steve Jones had survived, Jaeger was going to have to kill him. Again.

  He was tempted to fire up the Evoque right now and drive hell for leather for St Georgen, in case Jones was still somewhere in those tunnels. To finish this for good. But gradually he gained control over his blind shock and rage. Jones would be long gone, he reasoned. Even if he wasn’t, there were more of them, and Jones alone had proved a fearsome adversary.

  But most importantly, Jaeger had Uncle Joe to care for.

  Plus there was something else. Something that went far deeper. Jones’s reappearance was shock enough: but his reappearance there, at St Georgen, in a top-secret tunnel built by the Nazis and overseen by SS General Hans Kammler . . .

  Well, the ramifications were hard even for Jaeger to fully comprehend.

  If Jones had been placed in command of a team of killers charged with evacuating the tunnel and terminating all who might have discovered its dark secret, what was that secret? Who had sent him? And why?

  Whatever the answers, Jaeger sensed they couldn’t be good. Not with Jones involved. Not with such a direct link to a dark Nazi past and to SS General Kammler himself.

  This was bigger than Jaeger alone. Jaeger knew in his gut what he had to do: he had to make for Falkenhagen, to see if the full resources of the Secret Hunters might fathom this one.

  He picked up his smartphone and dialled. It was four o’clock in the morning, but Peter Miles – the group’s chief – had assured him that he was always on duty. No matter what time of day, Jaeger should feel free to make contact.

  A sleepy voice answered. ‘William? What time d’you call this?’

  Despite everything, Jaeger smiled. Miles’s voice had that effect on him. No matter what might happen, the man seemed imperturbable; he had an unshakeable calm about him. It made him the perfect boss for the movement, and for brainstorming what on earth Jaeger’s discoveries might signify.

  ‘Something’s cropped up. We need to meet. I’m with Uncle Joe, so summon whoever else you can muster.’

  Miles chuckled. ‘Funny you should say that. I was about to call you. Though I would have left it to a more sociable hour. Something’s cropped up our end too. So yes, we very much do need to meet.’

  ‘Fine. We’ll come to you. Normal place?’

  ‘The usual.’

  ‘We’ll be there by midday.’

  Jaeger signed off the call and logged onto the internet. Even as he’d been speaking to Peter, he’d made the decision that he needed to let Ruth know – at least the very basics.

  He didn’t know what the St Georgen discovery might signify exactly, but the last thing he wanted was for Ruth to read something in the press, finding out that way that their nemesis might still be alive.

  That would send her into a total tailspin.

  He typed out a short email. After their last, fractious phone call, he figured he’d keep it businesslike and short.

  Hi Ruth,

  Listen, don’t want to alarm you, but I’ve stumbled upon something here. There’s a chance that Kammler might still be alive. I’m looking into it – low-profile, so don’t fret – but it’ll delay me a day or so. Didn’t want you to see something on the news that might freak you out.

  W

  Email sent, he googled the quickest route from Munich to Falkenhagen.

  20

  The Falkenhagen Bunker: it was a while since Jaeger had been here. It brought back memories both good and bad. It was from here that they’d masterminded the destruction of Kammler and his co-conspirators, or so Jaeger had thought; but after the last thirty-six hours, he was assailed by doubts.

  The Secret Hunters had been gifted the use of the bunker by the German government. As Miles had reminded Jaeger, if there was one nation who would never forget the excesses of the Nazi regime, it was the Germans. It was a somewhat ironic venue: a vast subterranean complex where Hitler had manufactured his most fearsome chemical weapons.

  At war’s end it had been seized by the Russians, who had transformed it into a Cold War headquarters complete with a command bunker that could survive a nuclear meltdown – a massive domed structure set six storeys below ground.

  Peter Miles had made this the nerve centre of the Secret Hunters.

  There were few creature comforts in the bare and echoing concrete chamber, and Miles liked it that way: it kept meetings short and focused. There was one bare wooden table, bearing Miles’s laptop, with some plastic chairs arranged in a semicircle facing it. That was about all.

  Apart from Jaeger, Uncle Joe and Miles, there was one other figure present: Takavesi ‘Raff’ Rafarra, long hair braided Maori-style. Maori by birth, Royal Marines by training, and a fellow veteran of the SAS, Raff was larger than life in every sense. Jaeger and he had gone through their commando training and SAS selection together, and they were inseparable.

  Tough, resourceful, a natural-born warrior, Raff was the kind of guy Jaeger would choose to fight back-to-back with every time. There was no better soldier or more loyal friend. He was also a fearsome drinker, hopeless where women were concerned, and incapable of accepting orders from those he didn’t respect, which had pretty much done for his prospects in the military.

  Jaeger and Raff had left the SAS at around the same time to found an executive adventure company – though that had taken something of a back seat once they’d been drawn into the world of the Secret Hunters. They’d just started trying to resuscitate the business when the present unforeseen developments had transpired.

  Considering what had happened over the past few days, Jaeger was doubly glad of Raff’s presence. He was the man to have beside you if the likes of Steve Jones were back on the scene.

  It seemed odd not to have a fifth figure present: Irina Narov. Jaeger had asked. Miles hadn’t been able to shed much light. A few weeks back, Narov had disappeared: no email, no phone contact, nothing. Miles wasn’t overly concerned. She had a habit of doing this. She’d be back in her own good time.

  As succinctly as he could, Jaeger proceeded to deliver a briefing on all that had happened in the St Georgen tunnels. Once he was done, they played the footage from the smashed camera.

  Neither Raff nor Miles had laid eyes on Steve Jones before. It was only Jaeger who had got close enough to the man, and the more he watched the footage, the more convinced he was that it was Jones giving the orders. Which begged the million-dollar question: what had he and his team been seeking at St Georgen? What had they retrieved?

  With Jones back on the prowl, did that mean that his employer was too? Had his mission been ordered by his erstwhile boss, Hank Kammler? It seemed possible, and it was a deeply disturbing proposition.

  Kammler’s death had been confirmed by none other than Daniel Brooks, the director of the CIA and a good friend and ally to their cause. Likewise, Jones had been left for dead by Jaeger: shark food, or so he’d presumed.

  But had both returned to haunt them?

  It seemed unthinkable, but footage didn’t lie.

  Miles powered down his laptop. He turned to Jaeger. ‘You say you’re certain it’s Jones. Is there any way we can get absolute proof?’

  ‘Even if we do, it doesn’t prove that Kammler’s alive,’ Jaeger reasoned. ‘One doesn’t follow from the other.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Miles agreed. ‘But I have a separate – as yet uncorroborated – report suggesting Kammler may still be with us. More of that shortly. If we can be certain this is Jones, we may be able to use him to lead us to Kammler.’

  Miles was right. Jones was a fighter and a killer, but he wasn’t necessarily the sharpest tool in the box. He might blunder, and that might lead them to the kingpin.

  ‘I reported the murders forty-eight hours ago,’ Jaeger announced. ‘The police investigation will be well under way. It’s got to be high-profile: eight people – a film crew and historians – murdered in a secret Nazi bunker. It’ll hit the press, and that will flush out more detail.’

  ‘It should,’ Miles confirmed. ‘I’ll use our sources and dig up as much as I can. Plus I’ll find a way to quietly pass them a copy of this film, if you don’t mind.’