Stephen Leather - The Hunting

‘Yeah? And then he left us here as bait.’

‘Come on. You know it was the right call.’

Jaffar opened his mouth to argue, but before he could speak there was a popping sound and Mo’s whole body jerked.

‘What happened?’ asked Jaffar.

There was a second dull pop and Mo twitched again. Blood began to seep from between his lips.

‘Fuck!’ screamed Jaffar.

Mo’s head imploded into a bloody pulp and Jaffar cried out in terror. He pushed himself up onto his knees. Ferns and branches cascaded around him. His eyes scanned the trail but there was no sign of the hunter. He held the gun out in front of him, but even with both hands on the weapon he was trembling. He heard a twig snap over to his left and he pointed the gun at the source of the sound but saw nothing. He looked down at Mo. The back of his head had been blown away and blood was spreading across the ferns.

Jaffar heard a soft chuckle behind him and he whirled around. The hunter was standing about twenty feet away, an amused smile on his face. The rifle was pointing at Jaffar’s chest. Jaffar opened his mouth to roar at the man, to scream his defiance as he brought up the Glock, but before the sound left his lips the rifle had fired and he felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. The gun felt heavy in his hands and he tried to breathe but he couldn’t get any air into his lungs.

He tried to talk but there was something blocking his throat and he tasted blood. The gun fell from his hands and there was a dull thud as it hit the ground. The hunter was saying something but the words didn’t seem to be reaching Jaffar’s ears.

The hunter lifted his rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger again. Jaffar fell backwards. He saw branches and leaves and sky, and then everything went black.

CHAPTER 51

Raj heard the sound of running water off to his right and motioned for Sid and Erol to stop. ‘Hear that?’ he said, and Sid nodded. They pushed their way through some waist-high bushes and found a small creek, just a couple of feet across. The water was moving quite quickly and seemed clean.

‘Do you think we can drink it?’ asked Sid.

‘It looks okay, and we don’t have time to find the source,’ said Raj. He knelt down, cupped his hand and scooped water into his mouth. It was cold and refreshing – he hadn’t realised how thirsty he was. Sid and Erol followed his example.

When he’d drunk enough, Raj stopped and pulled out his knife, checked the compass and gestured at the two men. ‘You okay to keep moving?’ he asked.

Sid nodded.

So did Erol. ‘How much longer?’ he asked.

Raj looked at the pebbles in his hand. ‘We’ve covered just over ten kilometres since we left Mo and Jaffar,’ he said. ‘So by my reckoning we have another sixteen kilometres to go.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’ll be dark in two hours.’

‘Can we cover sixteen kilometres in two hours?’

‘No way, not over terrain like this.’

‘So we’re fucked.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘We can’t move through the forest at night, can we?’

‘We should be able to cover ten kilometres if we can keep up the pace,’ said Raj. ‘By then we might well be in sight of the house. If the trees thin out, there might be enough moonlight to see by. And approaching at night might give us an advantage.’

‘Or they might have night vision gear, in which case we’ll be well fucked.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Raj. ‘There’ll be lights on, presumably. And there are no trees close to the house so if there’s any moonlight we should have some vision. What we need to do is to get as close as we can before night falls then we’ll see where we stand.’ He straightened up and forced a smile. ‘I know it’s not much of a plan, but it’s all we’ve got.’ He looked over his shoulder. He hadn’t heard any shots from Mo and Jaffar. It could have been that the forest had absorbed the sound, or the hunter had bypassed them and they hadn’t had the opportunity to shoot. Either way, he had to assume that the hunter was still on the trail he, Erol and Sid were leaving.

CHAPTER 52

Van der Sandt stopped and took a drink from his water bottle. He shrugged off his backpack and unzipped it. He sat down with his back to a redwood and looked at his GPS. The three men must be making good time – they were probably going to continue moving after dark.

He took the transceiver from its holster and switched it on. He put it to his mouth and pressed the talk button. ‘This is Victor Sierra for Charlie Bravo. Over.’

Colin Bell replied almost immediately. ‘Charlie Bravo here. Over.’

‘There are three targets heading your way, and one of them is armed. Can you send some of your people out with a view to intercepting them? Over.’

‘Not a problem. Do you have a location? Over.’

‘I’ll leave my GPS on so you’ll be able to see my position from now on. It looks as if they’re heading straight to you. Over.’

‘Give me a second and I’ll check your location.’ Van der Sandt looked around as he waited for Bell. Eventually he came back on the radio. ‘Right, yes, I can see where you are,’ he said. ‘Can you confirm what action you need my men to take, over?’

‘Just turn them away from the house,’ said Van der Sandt. ‘They have one gun between them, the Heckler that they took from Nick. I’m not far behind them. Over.’

‘I’m on it,’ said Bell. ‘Over and out.’

CHAPTER 53

Colin Bell strode into the kitchen. Two of his team were sitting at the table, drinking coffee. They stood up as he walked in. Keith Emmett and Rick Holland were both former Delta Force with extensive experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. Emmett had worked with Bell for almost three years and Holland was a more recent recruit. Emmett was the taller of the two, just over six feet with a lanky stride that stood him in good stead on long marches. Holland was shorter and stockier. He had a shaved head and usually sported a pair of wraparound sunglasses, no matter what the conditions.

‘Right, I need you out in the woods,’ Bell said. ‘Mr Van der Sandt is heading this way, following three of the targets, one of whom has Nick’s Heckler. We’re tasked with making sure they don’t reach the house. Remember this is the client’s operation so we don’t want to take the wind out of his sails. Our mission is to send them packing but not to wound or kill. Understood?’

The two men nodded.

‘These guys aren’t professional soldiers but they have been trained by ISIS and they were among the group that massacred the tourists in Cyprus, so we can assume they’ll have no qualms about shooting at us. We can obviously return fire if necessary, but the client wants them alive.’

‘So he can kill them himself?’ said Emmett.

‘The client is paying our wages, so he gets to call the shots – literally,’ said Bell. He took out his GPS and showed it to them. There was a small blue dot showing Van der Sandt’s position. ‘This is where the client is. The targets are somewhere between him and the house. I need you on the way, stat.’

‘Our gear’s in the cottages,’ said Emmett, taking the GPS unit from the Colonel. ‘We’ll pick it up and head straight out.’

The two men left at the double. Bell made himself a mug of strong coffee. He had stood most of his team down at Van der Sandt’s request, so other than Emmett and Holland, there were only four more men left at the estate: Andy Isom, who was manning the guardhouse at the main gate, Dean Parrott who was on patrol in the gardens, Billy-Joe Maxwell who was standing guard outside the house and Gerry Lineham, the helicopter pilot, who’d returned after taking Nick to the hospital. There was another man at the hospital monitoring Nick’s progress but Bell didn’t want to bring him back. There was no need. Only one of the men that Van der Sandt was pursuing was armed and Bell’s men had been trained by the best.