Blood Hunt

by Jack Harvey

  Then he stopped dead.

  He couldn’t really see anything, but some sixth sense had told him to stop. He knew why: it was the nothingness itself that had warned him. He couldn’t see the ground ahead, not even ten feet in front of him. He shuffled forwards, toeing the ground, until one foot stepped off into space.

  “Christ!”

  He took two steps back and got down on his hands and knees, peering into the darkness. He was on the edge of a gully. No… more than a gully: sheer sides dropped he didn’t know how far. A ravine, a deep chasm. Even supposing he could climb down into it, he’d no idea whether he could scale the other side. He might be trapped. He’d have to go around it, but that might take hours. Damn it to hell. He tried to see something, anything down there, something that might tell him what was waiting for him. He unclipped the night scope from his belt and put it to his eye. Its range was limited, but he thought he could make out shapes at the bottom of the hole, rocks or boulders probably. The drop was pretty sheer, tapering off towards the bottom. In daylight, if he wasn’t rushed, he could probably find enough hand- and footholds to climb out the other side. But in darkness with the enemy behind him…

  He took the night scope away from his eyes and was confronted by the ravine’s blackness again. It was taunting him. Everybody, no matter how good, needs luck, it was telling him. And yours just ran out.

  “Fuck that,” he said, clipping the scope back onto his belt and standing up. His leg muscles complained. He had to make a decision soon, for all sorts of reasons. Turn left or right? Right, and he’d be heading vaguely in Jay’s direction; left, and he might hit the coast. Was that correct? He screwed shut his eyes and concentrated. No: if he turned right he might hit the coast. He had to turn right.

  He ran more slowly now, keeping close to the edge of the ravine so he’d know if and when it ended. The problem was, this close to the edge, he daren’t pick up his pace. One stumble might send him over. The ground was dangerous enough as it was. He remembered the dirt track, and the scree, and the boulders at the bottom of the pit… it was a quarry! The landscape made sense now. And if he was right, then he could half-circle the pit without too much difficulty. Quarries weren’t that big. There might even be places he could hide or, as a last resort, a vehicle he could hijack.

  He heard voices ahead of him and stopped again, unclipping the night scope. A two-man patrol. Somehow they’d got ahead of him, which was very bad news. There could be any number of them between here and the coast road. One man had called to the other to let him know he was stopping to urinate. The other carried on. Both had their backs to Reeve. He walked forward in a silent crouch and, when he was near enough, reached down to lay his rifle on the ground. His right hand was already clutching Lucky 13.

  The man was zipping himself up as Reeve came close. He’d had to lay down his own rifle while he was peeing. Reeve tensed and sprang, one hand over the man’s mouth, the dagger chewing into the exposed throat below. The man’s hands reached up from his fly too late. Reeve kept gouging at the neck, hot blood spilling over him. It splattered onto the ground like urine. He laid the body on the ground and retrieved his rifle. The other man was calling for his friend. Reeve made an affirmative sound and started jogging forward, like he had finished and was now catching up. His eyes burned into the enemy’s back. The soldier was saying something about radioing in when Reeve grabbed him by the head and went to work with the knife. More steaming blood. Another body.

  He’d killed them by the book. Quick and silent.

  He rolled both bodies over the lip of the quarry, then started jogging again. There was not time for analysis or shock; he simply stuck the dagger back in its scabbard and ran. He had maybe four more hours of darkness.

  He reached the other side of the quarry without incident. He’d presumed from the casual attitudes of his two kills that nobody was expecting him to get this far. The patrol hadn’t been primed for sudden contact. At the other side of the quarry he got out his compass. He’d start heading east now, a direct line to the coast. From what he remembered of the map, there were no settlements of any size for thirty miles north of the town of Rio Grande. There was the coast road to cross, and he hoped that would be his next and final obstacle. He heard a chopper approaching, but it veered off again. Maybe there had been a sighting of Jay. He hoped the chopper hadn’t found the bodies in the quarry, not so soon.

  He felt good again. He gave himself a few seconds to think about the killings. They’d been necessary, he was sure of that. They wouldn’t exactly trouble his conscience; he hadn’t even seen the men’s faces, just their backs. One of the trainers had said it was eyes that haunted you, that final stare before oblivion-when you kill, never look at the eyes: concentrate on some other part of the face if you have to, best if you don’t look at all. Because the person you’re killing is staring Death in the face, which makes you Death. It was not a role any man should be happy with, but sometimes it was a fact of conflict.

  The blood was sticky on Reeve’s hands. He had to pry his fingers off the rifle barrel. He didn’t think about it at all.

  He hit the coast road before dawn, and let the feeling of elation have its way for a few moments while he rested and checked the road for guards, patrols, or traffic. He could see nothing, but he could hear and smell the sea. He double-checked with his night scope that the route was clear, then picked himself up and jogged across the paved surface, his rubberized soles making little sound. He could make out the edge of the sea before him, and a ribbon of sand and shale. Lights south of him told the story: he was only five or so miles north of Rio Grande, which put him maybe twenty to twenty-five miles south of the next decent-sized settlement. Reeve knew what he wanted now-he wanted a boat. He doubted he’d find many between here and the next settlement north. He’d have to walk towards Rio Grande and, this close to the ocean and the road, cover was limited to say the least.

  He had to use what darkness there was.

  And he had to get a move on.

  He picked up his pace, though every muscle in his body complained and his brain told him to go to sleep. He popped two caffeine tablets and washed them down with the last water from his canteen. His luck was holding. After barely a mile he came across a small cove filled with paddle boats. They were probably used for fishing, a single rower and lines or a net. Some of them bobbed in the water, attached by lines to several large buoys; others lay beached on the shale. An old man was putting his gear into one of the beached boats, working by the light of his lantern. Reeve looked around but saw no one else. It would be dawn soon, and the other fishermen would arrive. This old man was beating the rush.

  The man looked up from his work as he heard Reeve crunch over the shale towards him. He prepared a glint of a smile and some remark about another early bird, but his eyes and mouth opened wide when he saw the soldier pointing a rifle at him.

  Reeve spoke to the man quietly in Spanish, stumbling over the words. He blamed fatigue. The man seemed to understand. He couldn’t take his eyes off the caked blood on Reeve’s arms and chest. He was a man who had seen blood before. It was dried to the color of rust, but he knew what he was looking at.

  Reeve explained what he needed. The man begged him to take another boat, but Reeve needed the man with him. He couldn’t trust him not to raise the alarm as soon as his fellow fishermen arrived.

  What Reeve did not say was that he was too tired to row. That was another reason he needed the old man. There was not yet light in the sky, but the darkness was not as black as it had been. Reeve didn’t have any more time to waste. He pointed the rifle at the man, guessing that a dagger wouldn’t suffice to scare someone who gutted fish. The old man put up his hands. Reeve told him to start hauling the boat out into the water. The man did as he was told. Then they both got into the boat and the old man slid the oars back and forth, finally finding his rhythm and working them strongly. There were tears in his eyes, not just from the wind. Reeve repeated that he wasn’t going to kill the
man. He just wanted to be taken out to sea.

  The farther out they got, the safer Reeve felt on the one hand, and the more exposed on the other. He was beginning to have doubts that such a small boat could get far enough out into the ocean for any rescue ship to make a rendezvous. He took out the metal cylinder which contained the beacon and twisted off its cap. The beacon was simple to use. Reeve switched it on, watched the red light start to blink, and placed it on the tiny bench beside him.

  The fisherman asked how far they were going. Reeve admitted he didn’t know.

  “There have been rumors of gunfire around the airport,” the old man said. He had a voice thick with tobacco use.

  Reeve nodded.

  “Are you invading us?”

  Reeve shook his head. “Reconnaissance,” he told the man, “that’s all it was.”

  “You have won the war, you know,” the man said without bitterness. Reeve stared at him and found he believed him. “I saw on television. It will all end maybe today, maybe tomorrow.”

  Reeve found he was smiling, then laughing and shaking his head. He’d been out of contact for seventy-two hours. Some mission, he thought. Some bloody mission.

  They began to chat quite amiably. Maybe the man did not believe a smiling man could kill him. The man spoke of his youth, his family, the fishing, about how crazy it was that allies like Britain and Argentina, huge wealthy countries, should fall to war over a place like the Malvinas. The conversation was pretty one-sided; Reeve had been trained to give away nothing. When he spoke, he spoke generally, and sometimes he did not answer the old man’s questions.

  “This is usually as far as I go,” the old man said at one point.

  “Keep going,” Reeve ordered.

  The old man shrugged. Later he said, “The sea is getting rough.”

  As if Reeve needed telling. The waves were knocking the little boat about, so that Reeve held on to the side with both hands, and the old man had trouble keeping hold of the oars. Reeve held the beacon securely between his knees.

  “It will get rougher,” the old man said.

  Reeve didn’t know what to say. Head back into calmer waters? Or stay here and risk being capsized? He didn’t know how long it would take for someone to pick up the beacon’s signal. It could take all day, or even longer if some final assault were taking place on the Falklands. Nobody would want to miss out on that.

  In the end the old man made up his own mind. They re-treated to water that was choppy, but not dangerous. Reeve could see land in the far distance.

  “Will other boats come out this far?”

  “Boats with engines, yes.”

  Reeve couldn’t see any signs of activity on the water. “When?” He was forming an idea. He would make it look like the little boat was in trouble, and when one of the motorized boats came to help, he’d use his rifle to take command and head out farther into the South Atlantic.

  “When?” The old man shrugged. “Who knows? An hour? Two hours?” He shrugged again.

  Reeve was feeling the cold. He was wet and seriously fa-tigued. His core temperature was dropping again. He asked if the old man had any clothing on the boat. There was an oilskin beneath Reeve’s seat. He put that on and immediately felt more sheltered from the stiff breeze. The old man signaled that there was food and drink in the canvas bag. Reeve rummaged and found bread, apples, chorizo sausage, and a bottle of something which smelled evilly of alcohol. The old man took a swig of this, and told Reeve he could eat what he liked. Reeve ate one apple and half a peppery sausage. The old man pulled the oars in and laid them on the floor of the boat, where they sat in two inches of water. Then he lifted up one of his rods and started to tie bait onto it.

  “Might as well,” he said. “While we’re here. Do you mind me asking, what are we waiting for?”

  “Friends,” Reeve told him.

  The old man laughed for some reason, and baited another rod.

  An old man fishing from two lines, and another man huddled in a tattered yellow oilskin. That was the sight that greeted the rescue party.

  Reeve heard the engine first. It was an outboard. He scanned the waves, but it was behind him. He turned his head and saw an inflatable dinghy scudding across the foam. It had no markings, and none of the three men in it wore distinguishing uniforms or insignia.

  Reeve aimed his rifle at the boat, and two of the men onboard aimed their rifles back at him. When the two vessels were twenty feet apart, the man steering the dinghy asked a question in Spanish.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Fishing,” the old man said simply. He had rolled and lit himself a cigarette. It bobbed in his mouth as he spoke.

  “Who are you?” the man on the dinghy demanded.

  “Fishermen,” the old man said.

  Now the man commanding the dinghy stared at Reeve. Reeve held the stare. The man smiled.

  “You look like hell,” he said in English. “Let’s get you back to the ship.”

  The debriefing took place while the Argentine garrison formally surrendered on the night of June 14. Reeve had been given a thorough physical by a doctor, then was allowed to eat, sleep, and clean up-in any order he liked. Mike Rose, 22 Battalion’s CO, was not on the ship. Reeve was debriefed initially by three of his own officers, and again later by a couple of spooks. There would be a further debriefing next day.

  They asked about Jay, and he told them the truth. They didn’t like that. They made him go over the story several times, probing at various details like dentists seeking a pinprick of decay. Reeve just kept telling them the truth. It didn’t go any further. A senior officer came to see him, one on one.

  “You’ll be up for a commendation,” the officer said, “probably a medal.”

  “Yes, sir.” Reeve didn’t care a damn.

  “But the regiment doesn’t air its dirty linen in public.”

  “No, sir.”

  “No one’s to know about Jay.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  The officer smiled and nodded, unable to keep the relief off his face. “You’ll be looking forward to a bit of R & R, Gordon.”

  “I want out altogether,” Reeve told the officer, quietly but firmly. “Out of the regiment and out of the army.”

  The officer stared at him, then blinked. “Well, we’ll see about that. Maybe you should take some time to think about it, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  But Reeve knew he wouldn’t change his mind.

  Days and weeks passed. Jay never appeared-in Chile or anyplace else. He was eventually presumed dead, though the Argentine military authorities denied capturing him or killing him. It was as if he really had vanished in that puff of smoke, leaving nothing behind but a snatch of a badly whistled children’s song.

  A song Reeve had hated ever since.

  And a man he’d hated with it.

  TWENTY-TWO

  JAY WORE HIS ARMANI-LOOK-ALIKE SUIT to LAX. He liked the way it was roomy: you could strap a holster to your ankle, tape a knife to your leg, and nobody would know. You could carry a small semiautomatic beneath your jacket, an Ingram or one of the folding-butt Kalashnikovs, especially if you had a special pocket and release strap sewn into the lining, as Jay had. The tailor in Singapore had made the alterations after Jay had been measured for the suit. Jay had drawn a picture of what he wanted, and what he wanted it for. The tailor had been bug-eyed, and had knocked a few dollars off his original estimate. It was a tactic Jay had tried since, with similar success.

  He toted a Heckler & Koch MP5 to the airport, its stock fully retracted. He had a little snub-nosed revolver around his ankle, and ammo in his pocket. He was chewing gum and wearing Harley-Davidson sunglasses. He wore brown loafers and ice-blue socks with the yellow suit. He fitted right in.

  He didn’t carry his two-way radio or a telephone of any kind, but he was wearing a wire. He had three men in the terminal building and two more outside. Not that he was expecting trouble. He was grinning, the way he often di
d these days, though nobody but him got the joke. He tried to blow a bubble, but it was the wrong kind of gum. It was hard to find the right kind of gum these days. Jay whistled a little tune, knowing the guys listening in wouldn’t appreciate it. He was wondering what kind of stunt Gordon Reeve would pull. Should have finished the fucker off in France. Funny the way fate threw old shadows in your face, blotting out the sun. In-where was it? Yes, Singapore, same trip he bought the suit-in Singapore he’d bumped into a guy he’d known in 2 Para, before he’d joined Special Forces. Jay had been sinking dark rums at some bar, maybe three in the morning, and this guy had literally bumped into him. They’d sized each other up, both keening for a fight; then the man took a step back and dropped his arms.

  “Jay,” he’d said. “Fuck me, it is you.”

  So they’d had a drink-a few drinks actually-then Jay had taken the guy, whose name was Bolter or Boulter or something like that, to a brothel he knew. It was just a small apartment of two bedrooms above an electrical shop, but it did such good business they had to wait in the rank hallway, plied with beer laced with Christ knew what, for twenty minutes, until Jay kicked down a door and dragged a weary punter off one of the girls. The service got better after that; they had a bloody good time after that. Then Jay and his pal went for a walk down by the docks. You’d never seen so many little boats bobbing on the water. It was getting on for six in the morning, and though both men were bushed, neither wanted to go to sleep.

  “Here, this’ll help,” Jay had said, sliding a narrow-bladed knife into the back of his old colleague’s neck. He dragged the body behind some trash cans, took a wristwatch and all the cash on the body, plus any papers he had with his name on them. He got rid of the stuff on his way back to his own hotel. Thing was, he couldn’t have anyone from the old days knowing he was still around-the SAS would want to talk to him about desertion. They’d be terrifically keen to talk to him, and not just to catch up on the good old days. He didn’t know what story Reeve had given, whether he’d told the truth or not; he hoped he’d never have to know.