Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021), A BATEMAN [urban books to read TXT] 📗

see an opening.” She paused. “I’m a big girl and I’ve been doing this long enough to know when to hold and when to fold.”

“Or when to walk away?”

“Meaning?”

Durand looked at her leg, the crutch, and the way she was holding herself up against the balcony. “She is right about one thing… You are not fit for active service.”

“Bullshit. I can still hold my own.”

“You must appear credible to Fortez. He won’t buy it if he thinks you cannot complete the contract.”

“I’m not taking a real contract. I need to get past the man’s security and speak to him face to face.”

“You need evidence of a crime for an effective and successful arrest to be made.” He paused. “Far enough along the process that Fortez makes a payment.”

Caroline nodded. She read the reply to her text, then typed out one word: Reaper. The text was replied to almost at once and she typed out what she required in just two short lines. She glanced up at Captain Durand before sending it. “I know what needs to be done,” she said, sending the text and smiling as she thought about her request. “Like I said, I’ve been doing this long enough…”

Chapter Twenty

 

Fifty miles south of Spitsbergen Island

Svalbard Archipelago

 

King looked at the pistol in the man’s hand. He’d been there before, and he’d never got used to it. The impotence of being unarmed and staring down the wrong end of a gun. The man wore thick thermal gloves against the cold and his trigger finger was still nestled against the frame. The sign of a pro. Little chance of a negligent discharge, but given the cold, the thick gloves and the immediate proximity, King would have had his finger on the trigger. But then again, King did not have the gun and the man in front of him did.

The ship trundled onwards, its diesel engines thumping and droning lazily in the background, the steel hull striking occasional slabs of sea ice the size of a single bed. King could see the man’s breath in front of him, almost frozen by the time it reached his own face. The breath crystalising slowly and falling to the deck like a snow globe that had been given only a lacklustre shake.

“They warned me about you in Moscow…”

King shrugged. “Whereas I don’t even know who you are.”

“That makes for the better operative, don’t you think?”

King looked at the man’s gloves. They seemed thick and cumbersome and half an inch in diameter too big for the trigger guard of the Makarov pistol. But then again, the man was a Russian and they tended to be at home in the cold. Although as he felt the sharp, icy chill on his face, he seriously doubted anyone could get used to this. But King knew that if the tables had been turned, he would have taken off the gloves before he had reached for the gun. Experience counted for so much in this game, and the thought that his opponent hadn’t thought this through as thoroughly as he would have, gave him some hope at the very least.

“What do you want?” asked King.

“The same thing as you do.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“Well, I suppose I want what’s ours, and you want to make sure the world never finds it.” He paused, his breath all around him and falling steadily to the frozen deck. “But essentially, we’re after the same thing. We both want something and are prepared to kill to stop the enemy getting their hands on it.”

King glanced at the ice under the man’s feet. Behind him, the rail was heavy with a build-up of icicles, large stalactites hanging down several inches. Eight inches or more in the darker recesses behind the lifeboats. King had the advantage of standing on galvanised steel grating, his footing feeling both firm and secure under him. He realised he was still holding the mug of tea. He looked around for somewhere to put it, then simply dropped it on the deck between them, the tea flooding around the man’s feet, the tin mug clattering across the deck towards the lifeboats. “There’s a manifest,” he said. “If you kill me, they’ll know in no time.” He nodded at the gun in the man’s hand. “And you certainly can’t kill me with that, or they’ll be looking for a murderer.”

The man shrugged like it was nothing. “People have accidents all the time. They slip on ice, fall overboard. It happens.”

“Not with nine-millimetre holes in them.”

The man waved the pistol to the port side. “Step this way…”

King smiled and shook his head belligerently. “Not in a thousand lifetimes, sunshine,” he said. He watched the hesitation in the younger man’s eyes. “You shoot me, and there’ll be an investigation. People will recall conversations, they’ll have alibis. But where were you? As soon as we dock, you’ll be the number one suspect.”

“I’ll be gone way before then,” he said, looking at the inflatable tender with its forty-horsepower engine.

“There will be a reception committee at the rigs. You’re going nowhere before the ship gets there.” He paused, glancing down, and watching the spilt tea freezing around the man’s feet. “You made your move too soon, son. Inexperience, that’s all.”

“Don’t you dare patronise me!” He stepped closer. King noticed the finger was inside the trigger guard now, the material of the glove had bunched up. He could see that the Makarov’s hammer was not cocked. The trigger could still be pulled, but the weight of the pull on the double-action Makarov was up there with gym equipment. Twice that of a Glock, at around fourteen pounds.

“That RIB won’t do you any good out here.”

“Let me worry about that. You should worry about yourself. The water will be cold, but it will make your death