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

type. I didn’t truly find out that I was attracted to another man until I met my partner. I never considered myself to be gay, or in the closet when I dated women at university.”

King didn’t answer. He wasn’t adept at personal conversations. He was watching the signal bars on his phone. He knew the display was wildly inaccurate. You either had a signal or you didn’t. Phone networks and phone handset manufacturers added the five-bar system to give people hope and to hedge their bets that the user would soon reach a signal. That was why that one or two-bar signal lurking on the screen disappeared to zero when you tried dialling. There was no point in calling Rashid for an update, but he typed a quick text to say they had arrived at the first rig in the chain and slipped the phone back into his pocket. It would send if or when the signal increased.

“What’s the plan?” Grainger asked, steering the conversation back to business.

“Just look for Shirazi.” King paused. “But don’t confront him. He’ll be dangerous.” King knew the agents of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence to be well-trained and ruthless. He had heard that during the war with Iraq they trained their assassins on Iraqi prisoners of war, and each agent honed their skills in every conceivable method from simply using their bare hands to knives and small arms and even sniper rifles. Chemical and biological agents were also tested on the prisoners. King had no idea whether the Iranians employed similar training today, but he knew of the human rights violations and the lack of judicial rights. With many people still ‘disappeared’ in the system in Iran, it wasn’t a stretch of the imagination by any means.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Grainger replied nervously. “I haven’t had a fight since I was twelve, I don’t want to start now. Christ, what the hell has Simon got me into?”

King patted him on the back as he took the steel grate staircase. “Just look out for him. I’ll find you and we’ll move onto the next rig.”

King took the stairs two at a time, veered off at the first deck, which mirrored the dive centre on the other rig. There were two men filling tanks and another working his way down a checklist on a clipboard. Neither man looked up and after a glance inside, King took the other staircase up to the next deck, where the walls and floor were enclosed, powerful heaters circulated warm air from knee level and the suites of offices, recreation rooms and kitchen were situated. People were heading out in tracksuits and running gear, others were reading magazines and sipping coffee. King glanced at his watch – a vintage Rolex Submariner he had bought with his first three month’s salary all those years ago with MI6. Only, it hadn’t been a vintage model then, but it had barely left his wrist since and never let him down over the years. He’d lost track of time, the dark hue from early afternoon onwards had confused him. It was still only four-pm, and some people were jostling between offices or working at computer terminals. He wondered whether typical office hours even applied out here. Just a month or so ago, the rigs would have been in three months of perpetual darkness, and in a couple of months the summer would give them three months of constant light. He supposed a different work ethic would be required, making use of the warmer water and constant daylight.

As King rounded the corner outside one of the recreation-rooms he saw Madeleine ahead of him in the corridor walking towards him.

“Alex!” She beamed, hastening her step before flinging herself at him. “You’ll never guess what?” she asked but gave him no time to answer. “I got orcas!”

“Sound’s painful…”

She punched his arm playfully and said, “Silly… No, there is room for me to study the pod of orcas, you know… killer whales… they patrol between here, Bear Island and Svalbard. They almost stick entirely to the green zone. It’s uncanny. We, or rather the other marine biologists think they dive deeper here than anywhere else on the planet. They feed on king crabs that have spread from when Joseph Stalin did a deal with America and introduced them to the northern Russian waters to help feed the nation. The species were hugely invasive and have spread prolifically to Norway and beyond. The team have recorded an orca diving to three-hundred and fifty metres. Normally they do not dive deeper than a hundred metres, although the previous recorded deepest dive was just over two-hundred and fifty metres.” She paused for breath, excitedly recounting what she knew, then shrugged when she saw King’s expression did not match her own enthusiasm. “But I’ll get to fit trackers to them and use the data for my thesis in my master’s degree,” she added excitedly.

King smiled. “That’s amazing,” he replied. He could see that she was genuinely fired-up about it, and she had a new project. He was no longer the source of her affection, and somewhat bizarrely, he felt rejected. “We’ll have to meet up, so you can tell me more…”

“Yeah, sure… I have so much work to do first, though. So much reading to get up to speed, to see what the other scientists have observed and noted. Behavioural, anecdotal, and then of course there’s the work. After tomorrow I’ll be on the Amity, the ship used for the project. She’s berthing tomorrow evening, and then we’re off in the morning.” She paused. “I don’t think I’ll see you after that, what with your work raising the submarine, I mean…”

King was a good judge of character. He recognised a young woman, scared of the choices she’d made. To go and work for a company based in the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles from the mainland. Not knowing