I scoffed, but the fact remained that Badrock was right. I was scared, yes; and yet, exactly as he suggested, I literally couldn’t wait for the hunt to begin. If it was a choice between sitting here, bound and helpless, or being out there with a chance – however slim – of bringing the fight to Badrock and his set of bastard hunting pals, then it was no choice at all.
He was right.
I was a hunter, and I wanted the game to start.
‘You might not be wrong,’ I allowed. ‘So when do we begin?’
‘Ha,’ the general laughed, ‘I knew it. I knew it! Yes, that’s the attitude, that’s the spirit I’ve been waiting for all these years. A worthy opponent at last, someone worth hunting.’
‘So let’s get on with it then.’
‘You’re right,’ the general allowed. ‘The night is not getting any younger.’ He pointed at the ground outside the jeep, gesturing for me to get out. I did so, putting my bound hands on the side of the jeep and levering my tied ankles over the top, dropping heavily to the dusty floor.
I looked around warily, unsure of what was out there.
‘Don’t worry about the predators,’ Badrock said. ‘Due to the nature of the guests we have here, we’ve taken the precaution of rounding them up and locking them away for the night, in those pens you saw on your familiarization yesterday. All of them except the crocs anyway, so you might want to stay away from the river. Hippos aren’t too friendly either, come to think of it.
‘As you’ve no doubt noticed, your bindings are not tight. You’ll be out of them in a minute or two at most, by which stage we’ll have driven away from here. But we’ll be back, I can assure you. You’ve got a half hour’s grace, to get yourself sorted. Hide, if you can. Come up with some sort of plan, if you want.’
He looked up at the moonlit sky. ‘Beautiful night,’ he said, ‘but it’s not going to last. A storm’s moving in, our first in months. Gonna be a big one, and I couldn’t be happier. I love hunting in the rain. It just seems right, you know?
‘You’re fair game to any of our hunters, but they’re amateurs,’ the general said. ‘So try and stay alive until the storm starts at least. Because you know that it’s going to be me that seals your fate, my boy. I’m going to find you in the rain and put a bullet right between your eyes, and I’m going to fucking love doing it. You hear me? I’m going to fucking love it.’
‘We’ll see each other again,’ I reassured him. ‘But it’s not going to go down like you think.’
‘We’ll see,’ the general said with a grin, tapping his driver on the shoulder, the jeep pushing up dirt as it pulled in a tight arc around me. ‘We’ll see.’ The jeep took off across the moonlit grassland, Badrock’s lunatic laughter echoing behind it.
As the jeep ploughed on until it was out of sight, I looked at the wilderness around me.
Alone at last.
The hunt had begun.
Part Three
Chapter One
I crouched low within the stand of black pine, eyes and ears scanning my environment.
I’d moved just moments after the jeep had disappeared from view, reluctant to stay out in the open; for all I knew, there were people watching me right now.
I didn’t kid myself that hiding in the trees would keep me from being detected; thermal imaging would still pick up my heat signature between the trunks. But it still provided cover from fire, and a sniper was less able to put a bullet in me with a thick bit of pine in the way.
The thermal imaging was going to be a real problem, that much was clear, and I began thinking about ways to defeat it. The problem was, there weren’t many. Mylar space blankets could trap heat, but only for a time. The Taliban in Afghanistan had used thick woolen blankets to disguise their heat signature, but again this only worked for short periods; and in any case, I didn’t have any blankets to use even if they did work. Acetate or glass could also be used to block signals, but the shape would still get picked up and – let’s face it – a three foot by six foot sheet of glass moving about the New Mexico grasslands might just garner some attention. And like the blankets, I didn’t have any glass anyway.
I’d already started to rub dirt over my exposed skin, pulling it up in great handfuls from the ground next to me. It was dry and wouldn’t really stick – and probably wouldn’t help much anyway – but any camouflage was better than none, and there was no point allowing my pale skin to draw attention in the moonlight. I attached grasses, sticks and leaves to my black uniform too, mud and twigs in my hair to try and break up my outline as best as I could. It might give me a few extra seconds, and that might be all I needed.
Finished with my basic camo, I lay completely still, and absolutely silent, tuning myself in to the world around me. Yes, the moon was bright, and I might see people approaching; but their imagers would pick up my heat signature from a long way out, which meant that the only hope I had to detect any pursuers in the area was sound.
Sound travels a long way, especially at night, and although the Vanguard men might have known what they were doing – although most of them probably didn’t – the civilian hunters were bound to have poor noise discipline.
You only really developed the talent when your job involved getting close to enemy soldiers who wanted to kill you, and I doubt any of them had experienced that first-hand.
At first there was nothing, just the sound of insects chirping and moving in the undergrowth; then I caught rustling noises, perhaps a small mammal further into the stand of trees.
Seconds passed, perhaps minutes, and I caught the slow foot pads of a large four legged mammal – or perhaps two or three of them – but they were some distance away, and no threat to me.
It took a while longer for the manmade sounds to reach me – diesel vehicles, voices – and I could tell that they were a long way away.
I couldn’t be absolutely sure that I wasn’t being observed, but I felt that the chances were good that – for the time being at least – I was alone, as the general had promised.
But I still kept low as I emerged from the trees, my training making me incapable of standing tall and presenting a large, easy target.
There were no clouds at all in the sky, and I wondered if Badrock had been making it up about the storm, just to give me something else to think about; but then I sensed the moisture in the air, and realized he was probably right.
It would be another benefit to me, even more so than the moonlight, and I welcomed it. Fourth generation optics were still pretty good in the rain, but it definitely made their job harder, as rain has the effect of making everything the same temperature. It would also limit the range of the sights, as light scatters off droplets of water.
Good news, all in all.
If I lived long enough to see the storm.
But I fully intended to live that long, and even longer besides; my threats to kill the hunters were not mere bravado, I actually intended to go through with it. It was what drove me, what motivated me, the mental key that would not only help me to survive, but to thrive out here in the park.
And so, without waiting a moment longer, I began.
I knew exactly where I was in the park, having familiarized myself with all the relevant maps as well as building a visual memory of the place from my various tours of the grounds.
I was on the open plain near the same spot the dogs had killed that zebra on my first day here, which put me in the northeast sector of the vast ranchland. If I kept heading north for a mile or so, I’d hit the fence line of the property; but of course, I had no intention of trying to escape.
I realized that meant other animals would probably be near – on that initial tour, we’d seen zebra, giraffe and elephant all in this area – but they were not generally nocturnal, and would all probably be holed up until morning somewhere, sleeping and resting.
Hippos were active at night, but I knew they generally confined themselves to the water and it was unlikely I would come across one here.
But I
wasn’t staying here, I was heading to the water; and I hoped that when I got there, the crocs and hippos would be friendly.
Chapter Two
I lay in wait, immobile in the branches of a Piñon tree, watching the men below me.
I’d already heard shots fired from far away –a man’s screams, other men’s shouts of victory – and I’d known the half hour was well and truly up, and the hunt had started in earnest.
And the first scalp had already been taken.
Probably the terrified guy had just run in circles, or else not run at all, just stayed where he’d been dropped off, too scared to even move.
Easy pickings for a man with a night scope and an accurate rifle; it was no sport at all.
The second kill had occurred in what I thought must be my sector, a mile or two north, probably near the fence line. It was an obvious enough choice for the victim to have made, an attempt to escape this pit of death.
It hadn’t worked.
So that was two sets of hunting parties free to pursue me now, having taken the easy prey first.
I’d heard their vehicles approaching while I’d still been at the river bank, covering myself from head to toe in cool, wet mud. I’d chosen a spot by the river – which was more of a creek, really – which was approachable only via a narrow track through a wide Piñon wood, and made no effort to cover my tracks; even at night, the hunting team should be able to follow them.
It was for concealment, but also because I assumed that crocs and hippos would prefer more open areas of the river; luckily I’d been proved right, and my nighttime mud bath hadn’t been disturbed by any killer beasts.
I’d then reversed back into the wood, careful to place my feet back into the same tracks I’d made going the other way, and pulled myself quickly up into the tree to wait for the men who I hoped would already be on my trail.
The sooner they arrived, I believed, the safer I would be; for with every passing minute, my heat would build and threaten to emerge through the cool mud I’d caked myself in.
The hunters had arrived quickly, as I’d hoped, and I could hear the jeep idling nearby; the wood had forced them to move in on foot, another reason for my choice of location.
As they passed below me, I saw they were not all men; the paying customer was Yvette Williams, the army logistics colonel eager to get her first kill.
There were two Vanguard men with her, and I assumed that the third – the overwatch sniper – was probably back with the vehicle, not having had time – or enough information – to set up an effective fire position.
They followed the trail below me in silence, except for the occasional metal-on-metal contact of weapons and equipment which was common among amateurs. Eventually they reached the river, and I heard the colonel’s voice.
‘Dammit,’ she said angrily, ‘there aren’t any tracks going back, he must have gone into the river.’
‘What do you want to do?’ asked one of the guards, unconcerned now with noise discipline.
‘There’s no way we’re going in there after him,’ she said. ‘Let’s get back to the jeep, we’ll try and pick up his trail on the other bank somewhere.’
I steadied myself now, knowing the moment of truth was nearby – my first, and possibly therefore also my last, opportunity to get into the game for real.
I controlled my breathing – in through the nose for four, hold, out through the mouth for four, hold, keep repeating the pattern until calm – and then they were right below me again, far less careful now that they’d designated this trail as safe.
Just as I’d hoped.
As they passed by, I moved within the branches, shifted my bodyweight, and let go.
I dropped to the ground, right behind the rear marker; I immediately reached forward, just as he was reacting to the noise, grabbed his shoulder with one hand and around his jaw with the other and wrenched violently in opposite directions, snapping his neck and killing him instantly.
I scooped up his rifle and instantly fired it at the second man, who was still only mid-turn, and buried four rounds into his torso.
Within the next second, I’d leapt over his body and was in front of Williams, who had turned her body but failed to raise her rifle at the same time; it still hung uselessly on its sling. The barrel of my rifle, however, was jammed right up underneath her chin; and I saw the terror on her face as her night goggles picked up my frightening, mud- and twig-covered visage, an avenging monster come straight out of hell.
Her throat constricted as she tried to speak, but my trigger finger moved faster, a single high-powered round surging up through her head and blowing the top off her skull, blood and brain erupting, black in the silvery moonlight.
I picked up the body – the lightest of the three – and held it against my own as I stalked back down the trail to the jeep, and the third Vanguard man who was almost certainly now on full alert.
He would fire at the body as we emerged, and I would reply in the direction of the muzzle flash.
But before I got there, I heard growling, and screaming, and tearing and ripping, and I dropped Williams’ dead body and edged forward slowly to see what had happened, rifle aimed ahead of me.
I saw the edge of the wood, and an animal padding down the track toward me.
I relaxed; there was no missing that happy, carefree gait.
Kane had found me; done the business on Vanguard man number three as well, saving me the job.
I didn’t know how he’d rid himself of those catching poles, but they were nowhere to be seen. I thought back to the dog fighting pit I’d originally rescued him from, and realized that tonight probably hadn’t been his first experience of those evil contraptions.
I bent my knees as he reached me, ruffling his head. ‘Good boy,’ I whispered. ‘Good boy.’ I turned back to the bodies behind me. ‘Now let’s see what goodies we can find, shall we?’
As I’ve said before, to the victor go the spoils.
Chapter Three
An hour passed, and I’d heard more screams and shouts from around the park; I thought three or four out of the six workers must have been killed by now.
I still hadn’t heard Talia, and wondered what had become of her. She hadn’t asked for any of this, had been cast out into the wilderness to be hunted down like an animal because I’d asked for her help.
There were no sightings of her reported by the other teams either, at least up until Badrock had realized that I’d stolen a radio and ordered the frequency to be changed. The small device and earpiece were useless for the time being, but I’d already got something out of them, barking out a short, garbled plea for assistance at the wood in the hope that other teams would descend on the area to help.
I had weapons too – an HK417 assault rifle chambered in 7.62mm, a .40 S&W Sig Sauer P226, a hunting knife with a blackened six-inch blade, along with a nice little multitool and plenty of ammunition. The Vanguard men had also each had a couple of thermal grenades on them, and I was more than happy to add these to my arsenal too.
I’d also taken night vision goggles – the kind that used existing light and intensified it to create the familiar ghostly green image, and a fourth generation thermal imaging unit. The HK417 also had a TI, the same as the SCAR SSR I’d used the night before.
The kit weighed me down and made me more noticeable, but it was a trade-off I was willing to make. ‘Never turn down a weapon offered to you’ was my motto – whether it was offered willingly or not.
I’d used the preceding hour productively, first setting a little trap back on the woodland trail.
I’d dragged the body of Yvette Williams back to her fallen comrades in the middle of the track, leaving them in open view. Then I’d poured a nice bit of gasoline – from a spare jerry can strapped to the back of the jeep – around the surrounding area, leading it back to the jeep itself, where I’d put the jerry can back where I’d found it.
I’d then put one of the thermal grenades under Williams’ body, her ja
cket attached to the pin by a short cord, and put her back on the ground, face down.
I had then retreated to my present position, halfway up a small ridge about a third of a mile away from the wood, and waited.
But I hadn’t forgotten Talia – I’d given Kane the torn slip of the dress the girl had been wearing earlier, the one her father had tauntingly presented me with, let him take the scent, and sent him out to find her. With any luck, he’d lead me back to her when I’d finished up my business here.
My patience was eventually rewarded, as I saw not one but two 4x4 vehicles pull up to the wood.
Two hunting parties, drawn by my false, garbled message on the radio earlier begging for help. I knew Badrock would never fall for the ruse, but I was pretty sure someone would – and now I watched as both Ian Garner and Paul Gustafson arrived on the scene, looking over the ravaged, half-destroyed body left by Kane by the jeep with what I assumed would be a mix of utter horror, and dread fascination.
They then seemed to argue over who would enter the wood first; they both desperately wanted to be the one to kill the thousand dollar man, and suspected I might still be inside.
Eventually the governor of New Mexico appeared to overcome the arguments of the Wall Street banker, and it was Gustafson who took point when they entered the wood. Two men went with him, and Garner and the rest stayed by the vehicles, which they’d parked right next to Williams’ jeep.
I wondered if anyone would notice the smell of gasoline, but nobody appeared to; perhaps the coppery stench of the dead Vanguard man in the jeep was enough to cover it.
I waited, still and silent, as the party disappeared from view, wondering if my plan would work.
And then I saw a flash of light in the trees, heard the muffled whump of the thermal grenade igniting as someone tried to turn Williams’ body to identify it; then carried on watching as the trees caught fire around the bodies within, the trail suddenly catching fire too, the line of gasoline racing white-hot back toward the jeep.
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! Page 11
