Stephen Leather - The Hunting

‘What about the heli? When do you need it?’

Van der Sandt looked at his Rolex. ‘Sun’s up around six fifteen. I’d like to leave here at about five forty-five. There’s another clearing about thirty kilometres from here, to the south-west of the first one. In view of what’s happened you should drop me there and I’ll start tracking.’

‘You’re sure you don’t want any of my guys to go with you?’

Van der Sandt shook his head. ‘This is down to me,’ he said.

‘I understand sir,’ replied Bell.

‘Can I make a suggestion?’

‘Of course.’

‘You might want to think about changing out of the fatigues before you get to the hospital. Wouldn’t want them to think you were part of some militia group bent on civil unrest.’

Bell grinned. ‘I’ve got civilian clothes in the heli, and we’ll leave all the weapons here.’

Van der Sandt raised his tumbler in salute. ‘Then God bless,’ he said.

Bell turned and hurried back to the helicopter. On the way he handed his carbine to one of the men, then took off his sidearm and gave him that, too. He got back into the helicopter, the rotors began to spin faster as the engine roared, then it lifted into the air and headed west.

Van der Sandt sipped his whisky thoughtfully. The fact that the jihadists had a carbine and a handgun was a wrinkle, but it wasn’t a problem. If anything, it made what he was doing more acceptable. The best hunts were always the ones where there was a possibility that the quarry could fight back. If his prey was docile and couldn’t retaliate, it was no different to shooting fish in a barrel. Now that the jihadists were armed, the hunt became more of a challenge. The end result would be the same, though. The men who had killed his family would be dead. He took a long pull on his cigar and blew smoke up into the sky. He knew that killing the men wouldn’t bring back his wife and children. They were gone forever. And he knew that killing them wouldn’t make him miss Laura and the kids any less. The loss would live with him until the day he died. But Van der Sandt believed in an eye for an eye. And tomorrow he was going to get his revenge.

CHAPTER 24

Raj put the last of the nine stones into his pocket. Another one hundred metres and they would have covered a kilometre, the third since they had left the clearing. It was easy enough to count off a hundred metres – about a hundred and thirty-five steps, for the average pace length – but beyond that it was easy to forget, and the stones ensured that he kept track of how far they had walked. Each time he covered a hundred metres he put a stone in his pocket. Nine stones, nine hundred metres. He looked at the compass in the hilt of the knife to check that they were still heading due east.

‘I’m knackered, Raj,’ said Sid. He and Jaffar were supporting Mo. Mo had tried walking with his makeshift crutch but he had winced at every step and after half an hour had collapsed, unable to go any further. Even with Sid and Jaffar taking an arm each, they were still making slow progress and it would be dark soon. Erol was faring better, but they could only travel as fast as the slowest member of the group, and that was Mo.

‘Another hundred metres and we’ll make a camp,’ said Raj.

They were heading up a slight incline. The forest was so dense that he couldn’t see more than fifty metres ahead but there were enough gaps in the branches overhead to see the darkening sky. Raj counted off his steps and when he reached a hundred he stopped and turned round. ‘This is it?’ asked Erol. ‘We’re stopping here?’

Raj nodded and Erol sighed and lowered himself to the ground. Raj waited for Jaffar and Sid to catch them up, with Mo between them. They helped Mo sit down against a tree. ‘Now what?’ asked Sid.

‘It’ll be dark soon,’ said Raj. ‘We need to build shelters.’

Sid pointed at the knife on Raj’s thigh. ‘Does that survival knife have flints in it?’

‘Yeah, but I don’t want to light a fire. If that nutter is already tracking us he’ll see it at night, and the smell will carry for kilometres.’

‘It’s going to get cold.’

‘I know. But we can use leaves and ferns to provide insulation. And we can lie together to share body heat.’

‘And we need to pray,’ said Jaffar.

Raj looked at him in astonishment. ‘You what?’

‘Isha’a, the night prayer.’

‘Mate, we don’t have time to pray,’ said Raj. ‘We need to get shelters built before it’s dark.’

‘He’s right, Raj,’ said Sid. ‘We need to pray.’

Raj shook his head. ‘No, we need to make shelters.’

‘Give me the knife,’ said Sid, holding out his hand.

‘What?’

‘I need the compass, for the qibla. To make sure we’re praying to Mecca.’

Raj narrowed his eyes, but then he shook his head contemptuously and gave him the knife, hilt first. ‘You don’t even know where we are,’ he said.

‘Mecca is east, that’s good enough,’ said Sid.

‘Well that’s the direction we’ve been walking in, or haven’t you been paying attention? And what about Mo? He’s in no state to pray.’

‘We’ll help him,’ said Sid. He looked at the compass, then pointed off to the left. ‘That way,’ he said. ‘That’s the qibla.’

‘Give me back the knife,’ said Raj. Sid did as he was told. Raj took it and started looking around. He found a walnut tree with reasonably straight branches and he put the knife in his scabbard and began wrenching a ten foot branch away from the trunk.

Behind him Jaffar and Sid were helping Mo up. Erol got to his feet himself. The four men stood in a line and began to pray. Raj shook his head and continued to pull at the branch. It splintered next to the trunk and he ripped it away, dropped it onto the ground, and grabbed a second branch.

He heard a yelp of pain and turned to see Mo staggering to the side. He was clearly having trouble getting to the ground to kneel – hardly surprising with the splint on his leg. Jaffar, Sid and Erol were already kneeling, their heads on the ground as they prayed.

Raj pulled the branch away and tossed it on top of the second one. He didn’t see any other suitable branches on the tree so he moved further into the forest. He found an ash tree with long straight branches and he managed to pull four away before Jaffar came up behind him. ‘We’re done,’ he said.

Raj gave him the knife. ‘Start stripping the twigs off the branches over there. And tell the others to start gathering ferns and leaves. We need large ferns to act as roofing and smaller ones for insulation.’

Jaffar went over to Sid as Raj grabbed another branch and began to twist it away from the trunk.

Once he had six long branches, he broke off six shorter ones, each about four feet long. Once he was done he took them over to Jaffar, who was doing a decent job of stripping the branches clean. Sid came over with an armful of ferns and dropped them onto the ground. ‘What’s the plan?’ he asked Raj.

‘We use the shorter branches to make two A frames. Then we run three of the branches from the A frames to the ground. Then we cover them with ferns. It’s simple enough. We’ll have shelter if it rains and it will trap our body warmth. We can use leaves and ferns to provide insulation from the ground. I figure we can get two in one shelter and three in the other. We need to sleep together to conserve body warmth.’

‘How cold do you think it will get?’ asked Sid.

‘I don’t know. Five degrees. Ten maybe. Enough to get hypothermia if we don’t prepare for it.’ He looked up at the darkening sky. ‘We need to get a move on.’

Raj helped Jaffar to strip the twigs off the branches while Sid went looking for more ferns. Erol went with him. Mo was still sitting on the ground.