Stephen Leather - The Hunting

Jaffar got to his feet and shook his soaking wet hair. ‘I’ll help you, bruv,’ he said.

The two men lifted Mo to his feet and took an arm each. Raj checked the compass in his knife. ‘This way,’ he said. Erol grabbed his stick and used it to push himself up, and together they headed down the slope.

CHAPTER 39

Van der Sandt walked purposefully towards the clearing, his rifle pressed against his chest. The man he’d shot had taken the round in the face so he was as dead as dead could be. The suppressor had cut down most of the noise, but the birds had gone quiet. Van der Sandt stopped and listened. The birds were beginning to regain their confidence. Off to his left he heard the ps-seet , ps-seet , ps-seet of the Pacific-slope flycatcher and to his right it was answered by the rapid twittering of a Wilson’s warbler. He had one bullet left but he ejected the magazine and slotted in a fresh one.

The second jihadist had disappeared behind a massive redwood and Van der Sandt had heard the sound of breaking twigs and rustling leaves. Now there was only silence.

Van der Sandt started walking again, his gun at the ready, his finger on the trigger. He reached the body of the man he’d shot. The subsonic 220-grain round had ripped through the face leaving it a red pulpy mass, and the back of the skull had been blown away. It had been a good kill, an almost perfect one, but he had been too quick with his follow-up shots. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The man he was hunting had made a good call keeping the tree between his body and the gun, but that limited his options when it came to running away. He pretty much had to run in a straight line. Van der Sandt brought the gun to his shoulder and stepped to the side, widening his view around the tree. In the distance, a hundred metres away, maybe more, he saw a figure moving through the bushes. He sighted on the man’s back, but then slid his finger off the trigger. He didn’t want to miss again.

He ran to the edge of the clearing. He looked left and right and decided that heading right would be easiest. There were bushes there but they weren’t thick and they were free of thorns. Van der Sandt held his rifle high as he pushed through. The jihadist disappeared into the trees but he was moving slowly now, clearly exhausted.

Van der Sandt emerged from the bushes. The trees were closer together and the lack of light meant there were fewer plants. He walked quickly, his gun still at the ready. Walking at a fast pace was more efficient than running, and made less noise.

He was mainly looking ahead, but kept scanning left and right, giving his peripheral vision the maximum opportunity to spot movement. He was breathing slowly and evenly and he knew without checking that his palms were dry.

He saw a flash of movement off to his left and almost immediately he realised it was a bird. A woodpecker.

He moved to the right, scanning the trees ahead.

The woodpecker landed on a branch and began to tap at the trunk. A large flying insect buzzed by Van der Sandt’s ear but he ignored it.

Something moved between the trees – a flash of brown, lighter than the trunks, clearly visible against the green of the ferns. Van der Sandt took aim but then smiled when he realised it was a deer. A female blacktail deer, just two or three years old. He lowered his gun. ‘Not today, girl,’ he whispered. ‘You go in peace.’

He moved through the trees, his feet crunching on small twigs that popped like corn in a microwave. He stopped and listened but all he could hear was the sound of the forest. Had his quarry stopped to rest?

Van der Sandt reached a redwood with a trunk that was almost four metres across. He headed right, raising his rifle to his shoulder again. He moved slowly. The man he was hunting didn’t have a gun but he could have picked up a branch or a rock, and at close range either could be deadly. He gave the tree a wide berth as he went around it. It was clear. He kept the rifle up as he scanned the trees ahead of him.

The undergrowth was sparser now. Van der Sandt picked up the pace, keeping his distance from the trees as much as he could. If he had been the quarry he would have done one of two things – he’d have run as fast as he could, or he’d have picked up a rock and hidden behind a tree and waited. Van der Sandt didn’t know the man well enough to know which option he would choose. He’d started running as soon as Van der Sandt had killed his friend, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t now waiting to attack.

He stopped and listened again. More birds. The buzzing of insects. Van der Sandt slowed his breathing. Over the years he had developed something like a sixth sense – the ability to know if there was prey nearby. Often he would know his quarry was close without seeing it or hearing it. Just a sense. A tightening of the stomach and a shiver down his spine. He was feeling that now. He approached a large redwood and instinctively knew to go left. He kept his rifle up and kept well away from the tree as he went around. He stopped and listened. Something scraped against the bark. Something soft. He tightened his finger against the trigger and then slowly backed away, a few inches at a time.

The birds had fallen silent as if they were anticipating what was going to happen. He moved his right foot back and a twig snapped. He froze. There was the scraping sound again. Softer this time. It was the sound of a man leaning against the tree and changing his position. Van der Sandt started to back away again. Slowly. When he was about three metres from the tree he started to move left again, keeping his rifle aimed at where the prey would appear. He could feel his heart pounding now, but his breathing was still slow and even. It wasn’t fear or trepidation that he was feeling, it was anticipation. The anticipation of a kill.

He took a step to the left. Then another. And another. His foot touched a twig and he lifted it and took a wider step. He was five metres from the tree now. There was another, thinner tree to his left, and he didn’t want to go around it so he took a step forward. As his right foot touched the ground the man appeared from behind the tree, roaring with rage. His right hand was up and he held a fist-sized rock but before he could throw it Van der Sandt put a round in his throat. The man staggered back as blood gushed down his chest, his eyes wide and panicking. Van der Sandt held his rifle against his chest as he watched the man struggle to breathe. The rock fell to the ground and the man’s hands clutched at his throat.

Van der Sandt moved closer to him. He could see frothy blood bubbling from the wound and the spreading stain on his shirt. Van der Sandt snarled. ‘How does it feel?’ he asked.

The man fell down onto his knees. His eyes were still open and his mouth was working soundlessly.

Van der Sandt walked up and stood looking down at him.

‘You’re shit,’ said Van der Sandt. ‘You’re worse than shit. Fuck you and fuck your religion. Did your god lift a finger to help you? There is no Allah, your whole life has been a waste of time.’ He raised his rifle and brought the stock down hard, smashing the man’s face to a pulp.

The man fell back. His chest was still moving as the lungs tried to claw in air. His whole body went into spasm for a couple of seconds and then went still. Van der Sandt stared down at the dead man, still sneering. ‘I hope you burn in hell,’ he said. He took his GPS unit from his rucksack and checked it, then started walking again.

CHAPTER 40

Raj transferred the ninth stone to his pocket and then began counting off the next hundred metres. He had to move to the left to get around a massive redwood tree ahead of them. They were constantly having to weave in and out of the trees which would throw off his calculations but there was nothing he could do about that. He took his knife from its scabbard and checked the compass. It was easy to lose track of their bearings as there were no landmarks to aim for, just trees and bushes.