Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021)

information was all fictional. Ramsay had been thorough and by using one of hundreds of existing accounts he had built King’s ‘legend’ by simply changing the name and personal info displayed on one of these ‘clone’ accounts, which showed congruence and validity to the casual observer, and the tight security settings meant that they hadn’t been able to dig any further. King smiled. It had been a good night. He had the equipment he needed, and he had weeded out the competition. And they had only learned enough to validate his cover and legend. They may not believe it, but they had showed their hand. The game had begun, and King was a little closer to knowing who all the players were.

Chapter Ten
 
MI5 wasn’t getting its deposit back for the snowmobile anytime soon. King had apologised to the young woman behind the counter, but after several minutes of her admonishing him and declaring he’d been unduly reckless with one of her snowmobiles, he had simply shrugged his shoulders and left the store. He had taken out the insurance and if you were in the vehicle hire business, then those were the breaks.
After breakfast he drove the Toyota to the beach and watched polar bears lazily stalking seals on the shoreline, the cat and mouse game of bears pouncing and seals taking to the water played out in front of loaded tour buses with raised windows on gullwing latches for the tourists to photograph the animals in action. The seals were able to lurk in the water and the polar bears seemed so well fed as to appear lacklustre in their efforts, barely bothering once the seals came ashore fifty metres away. The bears certainly weren’t hungry enough to bother with a small troop of enormous walruses at the far end of the beach. King wasn’t interested in the local wildlife, and certainly not the polar bears. He’d seen enough of those last night for a lifetime. But he had heard Daniel suggest to Madeleine at breakfast that they go and watch the bears on the beach. The breakfast dining had taken the form of two large tables made from the smaller tables pushed together. It was an informal affair, and he hadn’t eaten communally in such a manner since he and his wife Jane had once eaten at a restaurant frequented by locals near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. The thought had made him sad. And the realisation that he seldom thought about her now, nor felt the loss more regularly saddened him deeply. Time truly was a great healer, if only by erosion of the soul.
King had listened as Daniel had told some other people about the bears on the beach, but it wasn’t why he wanted to go. He had seen another person’s reaction and that had intrigued him.
King watched Daniel, Madeleine and two other people – a man and a woman from the breakfast table – standing beside a guide. The guide was a bearded man in his forties, and he carried a rifle over his shoulder on a leather sling, as well as a pump-action shotgun in his hands. The man looked to be a true Norseman and a round wooden shield and a Viking battle axe would not have looked out of place in his hands, although the modern orange ski jacket wasn’t strictly historically accurate. King watched the man exude calmness as a bear meandered across the dark, grey sand towards them. He raised the muzzle of the weapon, and King suspected the weapon would be loaded with non-lethal bear rounds. A tightly packed beanbag filled with tiny plastic balls. Enough to put a person on their backside in a riot or sting an unsuspecting bear into backing away. King noted the short Winchester lever-action rifle on the Viking’s shoulder, which would suggest that bears didn’t always react well to being stung by a beanbag travelling at four-hundred-feet per second and may need a more permanent persuasion. After last night’s demonstration by the RAF, King reckoned they did not like low-flying Hercules C130 airplanes and 7.62mm gatling guns, either.
King watched the man who was watching them. Even under the considerable bulk of his thermal snowsuit, he could see that he was both fit and relaxed in his movements. King estimated him to be a shade under six feet tall and had earlier noted that he was of slender, athletic build. A runner, perhaps. Not a weightlifter. King thought his mannerisms and demeanour at breakfast to be that of an American. He had a preppy look, loaded his plate with scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit and ate with only a fork in his right hand. Nobody from Britain put fruit with eggs and bacon, much less ate with just a fork in a restaurant and the European element were sticking to breads, pastries, and fruit, tearing the former into mouth sized pieces and dipping in their coffee, and eating the latter as a separate course. There was nothing else to distinguish the man as an American, but he had benefited from good orthodontist work a couple of decades before it had become the norm in Britain and Europe, and he looked as if he had a healthy country diet. Corn-fed, milk on tap and servings of beef several times a week. King imagined him playing quarterback in high school, perhaps even a college scholarship. He knew the type. Langley was full of them, and this man looked like he would have been poured into a suit and taken up office within the CIA. Young enough to be dangerous, old enough to have some standing, perhaps promoted above his peers in time to generate a clear career trajectory. King hated him already. A decade younger, on track for better things. All King had done was kill, steal, and deceive for his country. He had been ready, willing, and able. And that had bolstered his reputation, the belief that