Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021)

by A P Bateman

“I grew up in a rural location, in one of the largest forests in Europe. The nights were dark, the stars were clear, and the sky was big. We saw the northern lights on many occasions…” He looked at Madeleine. “How is your crab? I was tempted to try it myself.”

  Madeleine dipped a fleshy piece of claw meat into the butter and passed it over to him. King watched as he ate and agreed how wonderful it was. If he cared he would have felt awkward, but he wasn’t interested in Madeleine, Daniel could have her. But he did care why there was the pretence of including him. King had only spoken with her briefly in Oslo and she appeared to have met Daniel on the flight to Svalbard, and yet there was an easiness between them. They may well have slept together since arriving, and that was their business. Until he had met his wife Jane, King had always made it his business never to turn down sex when it was even a remote possibility, so he wasn’t one to judge what people got up to. However, sharing food was a long way down the dating line for him, and if two people were getting along so famously, so comfortably, then why include a rugged-looking man in his forties? There were plenty of people sitting alone in the restaurant, it was that sort of place. King could only come back to the thought that they wanted to keep him close. But why?

  The conversation soon drifted to King and his line of work, and he soon realised that it was always Daniel, in his passive aggressive manner, that steered the conversation. The sort of questioning that would ordinarily lead the person being questioned to justify their position. King couldn’t be sure if Madeleine followed on through politeness or was part of the act.

  “So, where did you train?” Daniel asked, taking a mouthful of cod.

  King was aware of the technique – ask a question, then make it difficult to ask another, forcing the other person to fill the void. There was a reason why CEOs preferred to interview their executives over lunch. Anybody pleased with a lunchtime meeting in business and thinking they’d arrived was kidding themselves. King took a sip from his beer, recounting the legend Neil Ramsay had made for him, the faked, but designed to look little used social media account, the potted history. “I did an engineering degree at Brunel, then worked in the field for a number of years before deciding to specialise in marine engineering because of my love of diving.”

  “Then you will have needed to retrain,” Daniel commented, suddenly having finished his mouthful.

  “Indeed,” King replied, taking a sip of beer. He knew the technique well and decided to offer nothing else as he took another mouthful of the strange reindeer and potato stew. He’d lucked out, the dish didn’t work for him.

  “Well?” Daniel prompted.

  “Sorry,” said King, apparently done with the conversation. “Southampton University.” King had helped Ramsay keep the legend close to real events. King had in fact been working and living on the south coast at the same time, although he had been labouring and taking part in prize fights while on the run from several London gangs who were intent on getting their stake money back for a boxing match that he won but should have hit the canvas. Something had sparked in King that day, and he realised that he couldn’t lose or step away from a fight. The same trait had seen him in prison on a double manslaughter conviction. That all seemed so long ago now. Despite being a trained killer, he was a far better man now. “I didn’t realise I was attending an interview. Would you like to hear about my grades next?” King stared at him coldly, enjoying the effect it had on the younger man. He smiled, softening his eyes to let the man know he had been joking, but Daniel didn’t seem too convinced. King turned to Madeleine and asked, “What will you be doing with Aurora?”

  She smiled and said, “I’m hoping to study cetaceans.”

  “Right… That’s seals, isn’t it?” King asked, rolling the dice.

  “No, they’re chordata, which break down into three families of odobenidae, otariidae, and phocidae. For example, walrus, sealions and fur seals, and true seals.” She paused. “No, cetaceans are whales and dolphins.”

  “I see,” said King. “And if Aurora don’t have an opening in ocean mammals?”

  “Sharks,” she replied emphatically. “I’m interested in cetaceans because of the numerous pods of orcas to be found there, where it was previously thought all orca pods were known. There are the orcas in Northern California and Oregon that hunt great white sharks solely for their liver, the orcas of Patagonia that have developed a beaching method for hunting seals and in Norway there are the super fishers, the orcas that have developed herding and stunning to hunt herring. Yes, there are many more pods around the world, but orcas are great travellers and migrate to different locations, scientists think, to communicate with other orca and learn their techniques.” She sipped some of her beer and smiled. “Sorry, I get passionate thinking about it. But if not, then I would be interested in sharks and in particular the Greenland Shark, which has recently been found in the cold climates of Iceland and Norwegian Fjords.”

  “You must have dived with sharks,” Daniel said, looking at King.

  “Both a pleasure and a natural risk in my working environment.”

  “Not as much of a risk as people would assume.”

  “It depends,” he replied, thinking of Cuba and an experience he had there not so long ago. It hadn’t worked out too well for somebody else. “Some species are simply curious, while others are downright dangerous. I don’t like getting in the water with bulls and tigers, but we dive in buddies and avoid dawn and dusk as much as possible. That’s the common feeding times.”

  “I doubt sharks are even in the water half the time,” Daniel commented dubiously.

  “I have a test that always works. If you do it, then you will never fail to know if there is a shark nearby,” replied. “It works in every ocean.”

  “Really?” Daniel frowned. He looked at Madeleine. “Do you know about this?”

  “No, I can’t say I do.” She frowned, looking somewhat bewildered yet interested, nonetheless.

  King smiled. “It’s easy, really. What you do is when you arrive somewhere, make your way down to the shore and dip your finger in the ocean.” He paused, looking at them both in turn. “Now, take your finger and place it in your mouth…”

  “Your mouth?” Daniel asked incredulously.

  King nodded. “Now, here’s the thing. If it tastes salty, then there’s a decent chance that a species of shark is nearby…” The other two looked at each other, then Madeleine started to laugh. Daniel didn’t quite see the joke, nor the truth in King’s statement. Regardless, King had had enough of the food and the company and had plenty to go and check on. He drained his beer and stood up. “Lunch was on me,” he said. “I’ll let them know at the desk to charge it to my room. Please, enjoy some dessert. But I’m afraid I have some calls to make, but imagine I will see you both later…”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Back inside his room, King inspected the bullet damage to the rifle. Karlsson had cut some of the synthetic material away in her effort to extract the bullet. He could see from the bulge on the other side, and the way the colour had drained from the black composite that the bullet had been close to penetrating and passing through. Another calibre up the ballistic chart, or ten metres closer for that matter and the outcome would have been entirely different. He loaded the rifle, applied the safety, and propped the weapon beside the bed. He wasn’t a fan of unloaded weapons. Next, King checked the pinhole camera again, but he hadn’t received any unwanted visitors. The room should have been made up, but as the occupants of the hotel had nowhere else to go, and the flights from the mainland had been cancelled, his room was available until the fog cleared and the boat from the port of Longyearbyen could set sail. King checked under his bed and pulled out the two samsonite cases containing the explosives and detonators. The cases were secured by double four-digit combination locks. King had been told the codes before leaving for Norway and steadily turned the dials, the lids snapping open when he had completed the combinations. He slid his index finger inside the lip of the
lid, ran it across until he found the secret internal catch, then unhooked it and cautiously opened the lid. The catch was attached to a grenade and although it wouldn’t have detonated the packages of plastic explosives, it would have killed, or maimed anyone inside the room. King repeated the process with the second case, then breathed a deep sigh of relief. He hated grenades and he despised boobytraps. One had to remain so alert in their presence.

  King studied the explosives, the RDX detonators and the detonation cord. There was also Velcro, glue, and duct tape – all the things needed to hold things in place. Because of the nature of the detonation there were electronic timers, spare batteries, and a roll of tools he would need including screwdrivers, pliers, snips, a boxcutter and spare blade and a wire stripper. King weighed up the necessity for the grenade boobytraps and decided to remove them. The samsonite cases were difficult enough to damage, and the combination locks provided tens of thousands of possibilities, but a probability of zero in solving. The grenades were not only unnecessary, but simply too random for King’s liking. When he was called upon to kill, he did so with a heavy heart, and in most cases through the sights of a gun or with his hands or a knife. When these methods were not possible or appropriate, he targeted with an explosive device or chemical agent, but only when he could be sure that there would be no collateral damage. King checked the split pins holding the spring-loaded levers down on the grenade bodies, and opened the pins up making it difficult to remove them by accident. He then tore off a strip of duct tape, tore the tape in half lengthways and fastened it around the grenades, which would hold the levers in place even with the pins removed. Then he stored them in his leather bag. He cursed himself for losing the Beretta but was more puzzled why it had not turned up in Karlsson’s search at the scene.

  King sat down on the bed, his back screaming as a jolt of pain shot through him. He was still aching from the fall from the snowmobile, let alone the terrific impact from the bullet into the rifle stock and the fall from the top of the shipping container. He thought about the size of the rifle stock and how far through the bullet had penetrated. The hard synthetic composite material had stopped the bullet and he knew that a wooden stock would have told a different story. One he probably wouldn’t have been around to hear. The choice of calibre had surprised Karlsson, but King already knew the rifle would have been an assault type. The calibre just didn’t fit for the island and the reasons for owning one. He had seen a large scope attached but had not been able to identify the weapon at such a distance, but the rapid follow-up shots had meant that it was a semi-automatic, and in that calibre, that meant assault rifle. He had felt the impact of the bullet against the rifle stock but had lost consciousness when he had landed so heavily and did not hear any rapid follow-up shots. Although that would mark the gunman as a pro. No target, no shot. Karlsson had not elaborated further on the gunman or the incident, which told King that she either had her suspicions, or didn’t have a single lead. More likely it was the latter and she probably hoped the incident would go away as soon as King boarded the ship to the Aurora platforms a hundred miles to the south. No harm, no foul.

  King took out his smartphone and opened a browser. He first searched for the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis. The effect of disturbances in the magnetosphere caused by solar wind. The disturbances caused by the sun are sometimes strong enough to alter the trajectory of charged particles of electrons and protons in the upper atmosphere where they collected hydrogen particles. The resulting ionisation emitted light of varying colour and complexity, seen best the nearer you are to either poles – the South Pole’s equivalent being Aurora Australis, visible from Southern Australia. To see the Northern Lights, it was generally agreed that you needed to be far to the north and away from light pollution. King knew that the further north you went, the less light pollution was an issue, but as he searched where the lights could be seen he saw that it was in fact possible to view them from Scotland and the north of England, particularly in Northumberland. It was what enthusiasts considered to be a partial observation, at around forty percent of what you would see in Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Scandinavia. King continued to search and discovered it was in fact possible to occasionally see the sight in Poland. Not regular, and certainly not the full show, but possible. He cursed, hoping that he had found a lie in Daniel’s story. Next, he searched for seals and whales and Greenland sharks. He recalled most of what Madeleine had said, and he figured that she was either legitimate in her claims to be a marine biologist, or she had a well-rehearsed back story. King decided he would delve deeper when he saw her next.

  Since landing on Spitsbergen and checking into the hotel King had had his suspicions. Aurora was hosting the international delegation of salvage workers that would make up the team to raise the submarine and tow it to the Faroe Islands, where the Royal Navy would assume command and receive their vessel. Hostile forces would be among the salvage crew with their own agendas, just as King was there to defend his country’s interests. He had earmarked Daniel and the American, but both had been on the beach at the time he had been shot at. But he still had reason enough to suspect the young American. The man he assumed to be Russian, staring at him across the luggage carousel had disappeared. King couldn’t identify the shooter, so was nowhere nearer to hunting him down, or remaining out of harm’s way. He stood up slowly. There was pain in his right knee now; his landing had been heavy, and the ground had been frozen solid. King walked over to the window and stared outside. The room was on the second floor and he could not see the ground below, such was the thickness of the bank of fog. Outside, vehicle headlights made slow progress, like eerie spectres in the ether. He doubted the crane operators could even see the ship, let alone load the supplies and equipment safely on board. He looked back at the two samsonite cases and again felt uncomfortable without the pistol, but more so at its disappearance. With the fog outside there was little more he could do today, and it felt as if his enemies were circling, and he had no move to play.

  Chapter Seventeen

  50° 00’ 08.99’’ N 6° 38' 24.38’’ W

  Atlantic Ocean

  30 miles off the Cornish Coast

  Keshmiri Pezhman studied the ship in the periscope. It was a Panamanian registered tanker and sailed under the name Golden Star. The ship was in fact Iranian owned and loaded with unrefined oil on her way past the Scilly Isles off the coast of Cornwall having made an unsanctioned delivery to a West African nation suffering from trade embargoes, on her way to the Northern Sea Route across the north coast of Russia, where it would arrive for processing in what the world knew as North Korea, officially and somewhat ironically called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As two countries both the subject of world sanctions, Iran had kept the oil fires burning in North Korea for more than twenty years, while its neighbour China traded in food and coal. The submarine would follow the tanker for another one-hundred miles and then refuel from the vessel’s vast diesel tanks midway between the Scilly Isles and the southern Ireland coast. When there was no other shipping for miles the submarine would surface and the tanker’s crew would secure them while the fuel was pumped and the submarine’s engine crew would clean the scrubbers and recirculate the air, while fresh water was pumped in and waste swapped for supplies. The entire process would take no more than thirty minutes with the Golden Star’s radio operator studying the radar and sonar array for approaching vessels.

  Keshmiri Pezhman was the rank of Nakhoda Dovom - or Commander – in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy. The elite corps of submarines trained in covert surveillance and the hunting of enemy ships and submarines. The hunter-killers. The young Iranian was proud to hold such an esteemed position, and although the West spoke of their superior technology and advancement in submarine design, Pezhman knew that both he and his peers across the corps had one thing their Western counterparts did not have and that was faith in the Almighty, the one true God and it was Him who would see them prevail, because they were w
illing to give their lives if required and that gave them the biggest edge of all.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Geneva, Switzerland

  There were many exclusive restaurants along the Quai du Mont Blanc. It was the same in most cities along a waterfront where bars, cafes, hotels, and restaurants could charge at least half as much again as their in-town rivals just for the view and the sound of sailboats bobbing up and down on the water, empty rigging blocks tapping away on masts. With views of the snow-capped alps, the Mont Blanc ridge and Geneva’s historic architecture – and not least the monied clientele this part of Switzerland appealed to – the eateries along the Quai du Mont Blanc could command a higher tariff than most places on earth.

  Milo Noventa sipped his second espresso and read from a copy of the Financial Times. He had the look of a carefree man easing into another day, in no particular rush and not quite sure where it would take him. His black, slicked-back hair went well with the grey Armani suit and the gold chain he wore over his red T-shirt underneath. There was money there, a certain sense of style, but little class.

  “He’ll have a ponytail for sure,” said Big Dave.

  “Why so sure?” Sally-Anne Thorpe asked.

  “He looks the type.”

  “And that is?”

  “Apart from slippery and slick, he looks like an arsehole. And if you lift the tail of a pony, or a man’s ponytail, you’ll always find an arsehole underneath…”

  “Cute…” Thorpe smiled, keeping her eyes on the screen in front of her. The camera was rigged in the wing mirror of the van, enabling her to watch and control focus from where she sat with the laptop on her lap in the rear of the vehicle. Another camera was fixed between the two kayaks strapped to the roof racks to provide them with some cover. Big Dave controlled this one, and it took in the wide-angle view.