The Hunter

by WOOD TOM

  Reed hurried. His prey was close.

  CHAPTER 74

  17:24 EAT

  Victor reached the second floor and rushed down the corridor, Browning gripped in both hands, arms extended and bent slightly at the elbow, gaze looking directly along the 9 mm’s iron sights. The fire alarm started blaring. He could hear people screaming. He couldn’t be sure what they were screaming at, but the voices sounded more scared or horrified than pained.

  He turned a corner, found a door in the right location, kicked it open, entered fast, completed a quick sweep of the room. A single, neatly made bed, no personal effects. Unoccupied. Empty. Victor headed straight for the window, grabbed a chair, hurled it.

  The glass shattered. He stepped forward, leaned briefly through the open space. Below him was a row of neatly parked cars glittering with shards of glass, behind them the chair, smashed. The parking lot extended for maybe twenty yards. A low wall marked the edge of the hotel compound. No Russians. No assassin.

  The drop was too far to risk, even with the cars to break the fall, but next to the window was a drainpipe. Victor slipped the Browning into his waistband, climbed up onto the windowsill, balancing on the balls of his feet, using his hands on the frame for support. He swivelled round so he was facing into the room, reached for the drainpipe.

  A shadow appeared on the wall through the open doorway. The shadow of a man with a gun.

  Victor immediately let go, lurched backward, seeing the assassin appear and the brief muzzle flash off the handgun as it fired.

  The bullet snapped through the air above him and for a serene split second Victor fell, the broken window rushing away from him. He landed on a parked sedan, crumpling the roof with the force of his impact. Side windows exploded, the windshield cracked, air was forced from his lungs.

  He sucked in a breath, ignoring the pain, and pulled the Browning from his waistband, limbs aching but still working, so no bones broken.

  He squeezed the trigger the instant Reed showed himself, but he was still shaken, his posture awkward. He missed. Victor shot again twice more, missing but forcing his enemy back into the room before he could return fire.

  Victor rolled off the car roof, landing on his feet. He spun around, gun trained on the window, crouching to steady his aim. Adrenaline surged through him. He breathed steadily in a futile attempt to control its effects. If he was injured he felt no pain. Five seconds past. Ten.

  No. The assassin had withdrawn, moving to another position. Victor scanned the other windows on the same floor overlooking the parking lot. The next attack could come from any of them. There was no way he could watch them all. Wherever he looked created a blind spot from which the assassin would receive a perfect shot.

  His gaze searched for a way to escape. The parking lot was too empty, running through it would leave him too exposed. There was a door, but too far to risk making a break for. A fire exit was closer, but closed.

  The fire door swung open, banging against the wall as two Russians emerged, both armed with PP-19 Bizon submachine guns.

  Victor dropped down behind the wrecked car, his body positioned behind the back wheel on the driver’s side. He felt vibrations through his back as bullets struck the bodywork. He didn’t wait for the firing to stop, dropped onto his stomach, and extended his arms under the car.

  He fired twice, one bullet catching the closest Russian in the shin. Both retreated back through the open fire exit, and Victor sprang to his feet, put another round their way, and ran across the lot, weaving between parked cars, heading toward the road, hoping the assassin was similarly distracted.

  Asphalt exploded around his feet.

  He took cover behind another car, pivoted. Victor returned fire, but the uninjured Russian had ducked back into the cover of the doorway.

  Movement on the floor above caught Victor’s eye, and he reacted in time to avoid the bullets that came his way. One smacked into the uneven ground where he’d been kneeling, another blew out a window of the car next to him.

  Victor threw himself out of the line of fire, going onto his front. He took a breath, considered his choices quickly. He had two separate attackers at two different firing points, one with the higher ground, and there were more enemies nearby who would join the fight in mere moments. It was a battle he wasn’t going to win. He needed to move. And fast.

  Victor slid beneath an SUV, grazing his elbows on the hard ground. He did the same under another. No more bullets were fired. No one knew where he was.

  He sprang up, shot at the window where the assassin had been and into the fire exit without waiting to acquire targets. A bullet struck the uninjured Russian as he moved out of cover.

  Victor ran, heading straight across the parking lot, away from the hotel, trusting to speed to keep him from being hit. He covered the remaining ground fast, leaped onto the small wall that divided the parking lot from the street beyond. He heard the spit of the suppressed shot and a piece of brickwork disintegrated under his shoe. He lost his footing, fell forward, off balance, landing awkwardly, stumbling into the road to keep his momentum from knocking him over.

  A horn blared. Tyres screeched. The bumper hit him mid-left thigh, catapulting him up onto the car’s hood. He slammed into the windshield, cracking it, tumbling up and over the roof, bouncing off the trunk before hitting road, instinctively rolling to ease the impact.

  The car skidded and lost control, mounted the sidewalk, and continued over the low wall, crashing into a stationary SUV on the other side.

  Everything seemed slow and quiet. Victor pulled himself from the hot ground and to his feet, grimacing as he put weight on his left leg. He hurt all over. He tasted blood in his mouth. His vision was blurry. He squinted through the haze, his eyesight returning, shapes coming back into focus. There were maybe four or five people standing open-mouthed nearby. He saw the crashed car, steam rising from the hood, the shocked female driver stumbling out. Behind her a man was climbing down a drainpipe on the side of the hotel.

  Victor realized the Browning wasn’t in his hands. He frantically looked around.

  He saw it lying near the crashed car. He limped hurriedly over to the gun, vaulting awkwardly over the wall, aware that his whole body was moving more slowly than he was telling it to. He scooped the 9 mm up into both hands and spun round to where he had seen the assassin.

  Victor fired, his aim terrible, the bullets striking the wall well to the side of his target, who dropped the last couple of yards, disappearing out of sight behind the row of parked cars. He reappeared an instant later, firing and moving, using the vehicles as cover. Victor shot back, taking cover himself behind the crashed car. Bullets thumped into bodywork.

  Click.

  The Browning was empty.

  Victor immediately dived back over the wall behind him, going into a roll to break the fall, coming out of it fluidly into a sprint despite the pain. A four-wheel-drive Jeep with sun-faded paint and dried mud caking the wheels and sides was pulling away from the kerb farther down the street. Perfect. Victor jumped up onto the hood, took two steps, dropped down on the other side, taking the drop with his right leg to spare the left. The Jeep stopped sharply. The driver was already fleeing before Victor had the chance to order him out.

  A bullet flew past his head.

  Victor climbed inside and slammed the door shut. The interior was filthier than the outside, seats split with padding spilling out in several places, instrument panels cracked, upholstery ripped, everything dusty. Victor glanced to his right, saw the assassin hurrying across the hotel parking lot, reloading his pistol on the move.

  Victor ducked in the seat, put the Jeep’s stick shift into first, transmission creaking, and accelerated. The passenger door’s window blew out, scattering fragments of glass over his head and back. More bullets came his way, flying through the broken window, slamming into bodywork.

  Victor reloaded with one hand as he drove. The last magazine. The Browning held thirteen bullets. Good, Victor thought.


  Unlucky for anyone who followed him.

  Reed watched the Jeep race out of the Glock’s effective range, lowered his weapon, and scanned the area for a suitable vehicle to chase Tesseract. There were several cars, mostly old sedans with neither the horsepower to catch up with the Jeep nor the four-wheel drive to handle Tanga’s less-than-even roads at speed. Anger threatened to explode through his calm exterior. Tesseract had survived yet again, and once more Reed suffered the indignation that his skills had been found lacking. He needed affirmation that only blood could provide.

  He heard Russian voices nearby and glanced in their direction to see several men entering the parking lot from an open fire exit. All were armed with Bizons and looked hungry for violence. One of their comrades lay dead on the ground in front of them.

  The Englishman held the Glock out of sight down by his thigh and acted like a shocked bystander as the Russians hurried out into the street. They shouted at locals, but the Tanzanians did not understand them, and in turn the Russians did not understand what was said back.

  There were four Russians so similar in appearance and movements they might as well have been military-bred clones of one another. Spetsnaz, Reed assumed. He had much respect for the highly trained and fiercely capable Russian special forces, considering them third only to their British and American counterparts. A fifth man appeared, clearly their CO, but not military, probably GRU or SVR. He was the man Tesseract had thrown at Reed and who Reed, in turn, had shot.

  Reed turned his body and head away. He did not want to risk being recognized, unlikely as it was. The officer ordered his soldiers to get to their vehicles and continue the pursuit. He did not follow as his men split into two pairs and rushed off. He leaned against a wall, a hand on his chest. He must have been wearing a vest to have survived Reed’s bullet to the sternum. Most fortunate.

  Reed walked quickly until he was out of sight of the Russians before breaking into a run. He dodged around pedestrians, sprinting around the hotel’s exterior until he emerged on its front side. Cars were parked along the half circle of driveway that linked the hotel to the main road. He knew that he did not have time either to hot-wire a car or to find keys for another. But he didn’t need to. A man was closing the door of a well-kept-looking Land Rover.

  Reed threw the driver from his seat and climbed in.

  CHAPTER 75

  17:26 EAT

  Sykes hurried down the stairs, trailing behind Dalweg. The big ex-SEAL had his Beretta held out before him and moved fast and assured while Sykes breathlessly stumbled after him, one hand loosely gripping his own gun and the other on the banister to help keep him on his feet. Fear and acid reflux made for a lethal cocktail.

  Gunshots made Sykes hesitate. They were loud, seemingly originating from outside the back of the hotel. Dalweg was unfazed, reaching the bottom of the staircase and taking up position to peer into the adjoining corridor. He looked back at Sykes.

  ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘You need to keep up, or I’m just gonna fucking leave you here. I don’t care.’

  Dalweg headed down the corridor and Sykes followed, trying not to startle at every bang. It sounded like a full-scale war was being fought, but he was glad that those who were trying to kill one another were not doing so inside the building any more. Sykes’s palm was moist around the SIG’s grip.

  The lobby was deserted apart from a couple of members of the hotel staff cowering behind the check-in desk. Dalweg picked up speed, almost jogging across the open space of the lobby before reaching the main entrance. He put a shoulder to a wall and glanced through a window. He moved to another and looked out again.

  ‘Looks clear. I think we’re good.’

  Sykes swallowed and used the sleeve of his T-shirt to wipe his sweaty face. A sustained barrage of automatic fire made him freeze in place, and even Dalweg flinched. Shouting came next. It sounded like Russians in the adjoining bar and corridors.

  A barrage of thoughts assailed Sykes’s mind. If Russians were here, they must have found out about the missiles. But who were they fighting? Who was the man who shot Wiechman? What the hell was going on? The answer terrified him.

  Sykes felt Dalweg’s hand on his shoulder. He looked at him.

  ‘Listen, you worthless little shit,’ Dalweg said. ‘If you want me to get you out of this I’m going to want more money. A hell of a lot more.’

  Sykes nodded several times. ‘Of course, whatever you want. Just get me the hell out of here. Please.’

  Dalweg looked at him contemptuously and pushed through the main hotel door. Sunlight flooded through the doorway and made Sykes squint. He’d left his sunglasses in his room along with the rest of his belongings without a second’s thought.

  Dalweg rushed out into the glare and took up a covering position behind a car parked in front of the hotel. Sykes ran after him and squatted down nearby, panting, terrified.

  Dalweg looked left and right down the street. Locals were gathering in response to the gunfire. They appeared curious more than scared.

  ‘I don’t see anyone,’ Dalweg said.

  Sykes kept low anyway. ‘What about the truck?’

  ‘It’s still there.’

  ‘No one’s near it?’

  Dalweg shook his head. ‘If they were I would have said, idiot. Whatever’s going down here isn’t about those missiles.’

  ‘It must be.’

  Dalweg looked at him, scowling. ‘Then why, genius, are those clowns shooting the shit out of one another around the back and not making off with the truck?’

  Sykes shrugged.

  ‘Exactly,’ Dalweg said.

  ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘We’re leaving.’

  Dalweg stood and hurried across the street and over toward the truck. He stopped and motioned for Sykes to follow. It took three deep breaths and a half-hearted prayer for Sykes to get his legs moving. He sprinted out from behind the car and across the street, heading toward where Dalweg was climbing into the truck’s cab.

  Sykes heard the sound of a vehicle approaching and flattened himself against the truck as a Jeep hurtled closer. He stared at the driver, in shock. The Jeep sped past and Sykes watched it, openmouthed, disbelieving. Tesseract.

  Movement caught his eye. A man emerged from out of a side street. The man had a buzz cut and a neck like a tree trunk, skin too light to be a local. It took a few seconds for Sykes’s brain to catch up with what he was seeing, and in that short time the man charged straight at him.

  Sykes raised his gun hand, but he was nowhere near fast enough, and 205 pounds of angry Latino struck him shoulder first in the gut, sending Sykes flying backward, hitting the dusty blacktop on his back, hard. The gun flew from his hand and clattered out of sight.

  Sykes wheezed, red faced, trying desperately to pull air into his deflated lungs.

  Alvarez was on his feet in only a few seconds. He was a big guy, but he still had more speed than most people expected. A small crowd of Tanzanians were watching him, but he ignored them and looked around for Sykes’s gun. He couldn’t see it anywhere, and there was no more time to search.

  He took a step back, turned around. A tall square canvas cover shielded the back of the truck and had a secured door in the middle of the back panel. Alvarez ripped the door open and peered inside. Two pick-up trucks sped past him. The sickly strong smell of salt water made him wince. Thick canvas sheets covered the cargo. Alvarez pulled them aside, seeing an assortment of items: dive tanks, regulators, an underwater cutting torch, lanyards, fins, open-bottom lift bags, underwater lights, a box of flares.

  Lying among the equipment were huge tubular sections of white-painted metal that ran the entire length of the cargo box and that were as wide as Alvarez’s shoulders. They had obviously been dismantled to allow them to be brought to the surface, but the missiles were still much larger than Alvarez had imagined.

  ‘Jackpot,’ he whispered.

  Alvarez heard the driver’s door open, pressed his back flat against
the tailgate, and waited.

  Sykes tried to call for help, but he didn’t have enough breath to make words. He struggled on the hot ground, scared and in agony. He watched a Land Rover accelerate out of the hotel’s driveway and heard Dalweg’s voice.

  ‘What the fuck?’

  Sykes tried to look up to see Dalweg, but he didn’t have the strength. Instead he rolled his head to the side, seeing the world at a skewed angle and watching Dalweg approaching him along the side of the truck, on his way to help. Sykes rolled his head to the other side and saw Alvarez waiting behind the back of the truck, out of Dalweg’s sight.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Dalweg asked.

  Sykes rolled his head back again and tried to warn Dalweg, but his shouts came out of his winded chest no louder than whimpers. He tried to point, but Dalweg didn’t understand.

  The second Dalweg reached Sykes, Alvarez was upon him. He threw himself at Dalweg from behind, tackling him down to the ground, hitting the road to the left of where Sykes lay. Orange dust wafted into the air.

  Sykes tried to shuffle out of the way as the two men grappled and punched each other next to him. He was still wheezing, but the intense pain in his chest was slowly fading with each second. He managed to roll to the right, first onto his front, and then onto his back again. He heard the grunts and sickening thwack as fists hit flesh no more than a few feet away. Blood specks landed on Sykes’s face.

  Sykes pulled himself slowly to his feet and staggered backwards until he found a wall to lean on. Some locals started cheering the fight.

  Straight in front of him Alvarez and Dalweg pounded the crap out of each other. Both guys were strong, and both knew how to fight. Alvarez wrestled his way on top of Dalweg, using his left hand to pin Dalweg’s right arm to the ground while he punched and elbowed Dalweg with his own right. Blood erupted from a gash on Dalweg’s cheek. He was already bleeding from the mouth. Sykes could see it was all going to be over in a few seconds.