Беар Гриллс - The Hunt [=The Devil's Sanctuary]

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.

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.

Snow that would settle into bullet-hard ice as soon as the avalanche stopped.

But one of his pursuers remained alive.

Jaeger felt their eyes meet across the ravaged hillside. Whoever this lone figure might be, he didn’t unsling his weapon or unleash any rounds. He was clearly too disciplined, knowing the range was too great. Smart – conserving ammo. Knowing Jaeger was all out of rounds on the Dragunov.

It was one-on-one now. A manhunt.

Jaeger knew that he was close to dead beat. He had to find a way to finish this. Almost as one, he and his pursuer turned back to the hillside and recommenced the deadly race.

After twenty minutes, Kammler’s man was gaining on Jaeger, even on the uphill stretches; closing for the kill. Sooner or later, he’d have his target within range of his sub-machine gun.

The words of Jaeger’s SAS instructors blazed through his mind: Fight from the time and place of your own choosing.

He knew what he was looking for; knew what he had to do.

Jaeger topped a small rise, and the scene that opened before him looked as good as he could have hoped for. A flattish plain stretched ahead, wind-scoured so that his tracks would show no trace. It was wide open, and dotted here and there with exposed rocky outcrops.

He skied ahead and chose a small, snow-sculpted heap of boulders that protruded from the whiteness, dropping behind it and kicking off his skis. He drew his P228, chambered a round, and settled the barrel on the topmost surface of the rock. Like this, prone on his belly and mostly in cover, he would be practically invisible to his pursuer as he topped the rise.

Maybe one hundred feet would then separate the two of them. It was doable.

As he calmed his breathing in preparation for what was coming, he reminded himself of the P228’s accuracy. No other pistol came close.

Sure, the stopping power of the 9mm round was less than the heavier .45-calibre pistols. But Jaeger’s P228 was loaded with hollow-point ammo, which was available in certain SF and espionage circles. A hollow-point round did pretty much what it said on the tin. The tip of the bullet was hollowed out, so that when it hit, it tore itself apart, causing maximum lethality.

At twenty-five yards – so about the same kind of distance he now had to engage at – he’d reliably achieve a grouping of less than three inches on the ranges.

But this was a different situation altogether. The negative impact of acute stress, physical exhaustion and raw fear would play havoc on anyone’s aim. All he could do was try to calm his breathing, settle his nerves and relax into the shot.

A head appeared above the ridgeline. Jaeger waited for the torso to follow. He needed as large a mass as possible to aim for. The eyes of his pursuer scanned the way ahead. He must have noticed that it was devoid of his prey.

Moments later, he had dropped flat on the snow.

Jaeger cursed.

This guy was good.

He figured he’d recognised the gait, too, if not the features. He could have sworn it was Vladimir Ustanov, a man with whom he had crossed swords more than once. Narov had told him about the sighting in Dubai, and now here was Ustanov, hunting him across the Tibetan snowfields.

During their previous showdown, in the Amazon, Ustanov had proved to be an utterly single-minded operator and a cold-blooded murderer. He’d captured one of Jaeger’s expedition members – Leticia Santos, a Brazilian and one of Jaeger’s favourites – and tortured her horrifically.

When Jaeger had gone in to rescue her, it had brought him face to face with Ustanov. And now here they were again, second time around.

Jaeger kept his aim firm. He just needed Ustanov to make one mistake; to show himself. The distant figure kicked off his skis. He must know that Jaeger had gone to ground, which meant it was Type 79 sub-machine gun versus P228 pistol.