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

on your sub will be infected. I’m glad you lot got there first. You’ve probably saved my life.”

“You’re bluffing…” Shirazi replied weakly. “You know nothing of it. You’re just a foot soldier. Anyway, you’re too late,” he sneered. “The submarine will dive inside a minute and the next thing you will know about the warheads is when one explodes in a city of our choosing. Hopefully, your city, with you and your loved ones in it…”

King ignored him. “Where are they taking the warheads?” He glared down at him, the pistol firm and steady in his hands. “Tell me!”

Shirazi smiled. “To Tehran, of course…” He coughed again. “And some will go to our friends in the DPRK. The world is changing and soon, you and the Great Satan that is the United States will no longer assert their dominance on the rest of us… ”

“North Korea?” King frowned. “They aren’t your friends…”

Shirazi smiled then coughed again. This time, a steady gush of blood left his mouth and when he spoke again, it was a gargle. “The… enemy… of… my… enemy…” He coughed, then rasped. “… is… my… friend…”

King looked at the submarine. He had no idea how many warheads the Iranians had taken aboard, but he knew he could never afford to let them get away. He looked back at Shirazi, but the man was holding something, trying to get the dexterity back into his freezing, dying fingers. King saw enough to recognise two small hexagonal barrels, and he shot Shirazi in the forehead and turned for the other RIB.

“Get us to that sub!” he shouted at Grainger. “Madeleine, are you ready?”

“All set!”

The RIB sliced through the water, gently lifting as it drove head on into the rolling swells. King watched the submarine ahead. A figure appeared at the top of the conning tower, head and shoulders above the rim. He could see them using binoculars. The figure disappeared and King knew what would happen next.

“She’s going to dive!” he shouted, turning to Madeleine. “What do I do?”

Madeleine staggered unsteadily forwards, clutching onto the seats for support. She held out the tubular device approximately the size of a can of deodorant. It was made from clear hardened plastic and inside, King could see a processor, coloured bulbs, and a tangle of wires. What looked like a series of SIM cards were inserted into a cartridge and a long trail of fibreoptic cable dangled down at least eighteen inches. At the other end of the tube a ring pin had been threaded with metal clips. “It’s designed to be inserted into the flesh at the base of a shark or whale’s dorsal fin,” she shouted in King’s ear. “I have just finished substituting the barb for metal ring ties. Not that you’ve actually told me, but I kind of figured out what you’re up to. The tracking unit has been tested to one thousand metres and has a battery life of two weeks.”

“How deep can it go without losing a signal?” King asked as he started to strip off his clothes.

“The animal has to surface for the data to be collated. That’s water temperature, the animal’s heartbeat, distance travelled etc…”

“It’s not a bloody animal!” King interrupted tersely.

“I know!” Madeleine snapped right back. “The data will not download, but the unit will emit a signal constantly. The control receiver will pick up the GPS signal and show on the map on the laptop.” She paused, throwing what looked like a buoy into the water, but instead of floating it sank out of sight and Madeleine ran the end of a cable into a small, black unit, then plugged the unit into her laptop using a USB cable. She gathered some length and wound it round one of the heavy-duty rubber cleats so that the USB would not pull out of the unit of the laptop. She looked back at King as he tore off his trousers and stood in just a pair of black boxers. Her eyes had briefly focused on his taut muscles but lingered on the scar. King had been shot in the stomach and the surgery to remove the bullet and stop the internal bleeding had left his stomach looking as if a shark had bitten him almost in half but spat him back out. At his shoulder and right pectoral muscle there was a track of scars from bullet holes. She looked back at him, a little shaken and tried to regain composure. “The receiver is in the water and picking up the signal. There is a second’s delay for every one-hundred metres in depth and an additional delay for speed. The tracker is designed for use with sharks and whales, not submarines travelling at thirty knots.”

“More like twenty-two for this model,” King said, starting to shiver. The air temperature was -8ºc and the water temperature was just above the -2ºc mark. He looked back at the submarine, now just one-hundred metres distant and almost half submerged. “Get with Grainger and work out approximate figures for delays given depth and speed information. I’m supposing that if you receive the signal and we know the time between transmissions, depth and speed can be calculated?” He paused, smiling nervously, or he could have been shivering. “I think you and Grainger will be better placed to calculate that, rather than Rashid or myself. Get those degrees, Master’s and PHDs working…” He took the tracker unit from her and looked back at the submarine, now almost completely submerged except for the top third of the conning tower. The water looked like it was boiling, but it was merely the expelled air creating bubbles as the ballast tanks were expunged and water was sucked inside. He took a series of deep breaths to psych himself up and said, “Okay, Grainger. Get me right on her!”

King knew what to expect as he dived outwards from the moving