Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021)

sometimes, he was the only man for the job. He could barely recount a mission that had gone to plan, or nor was he convinced even that the result had really made much difference in the grand scheme of things. He studied the man resting beside the Kia Sportage hire car, his attention on the small group on the beach, dangerously close to the bears and the frozen shoreline. What games had this young man been sent to play? King wondered whether he would have appreciated a man a decade older than himself advising him to give it all up and run for the hills. Not likely, he thought. He would have slotted the older man right there and then. He smiled at the thought. No, this young American was in play. The pieces were on the board. Britain had King, their American ‘friends’ had this young man, but what of the Russians? He would bet all he owned that the man staring back at him at the airport luggage belt had been Russian. He had the look, whatever the hell that was. But King was seldom wrong when it came to reading people. He knew the foibles that made every country unique. His life’s work had been in reading both people and the situations he found himself in. But he’d read enough here. He could see that Daniel was a player, simply by the fact the American had taken an interest in him, and by that note, the American was a player, too.
The vehicle’s heaters were on full and doing a fair job of clearing his rapidly freezing breath on the windscreen, but as King slipped the pickup into gear, he reached forward and cleared the edges of the windscreen with the back of his gloved hand. Both the rear, offside window and the driver’s window shattered, the headrest erupting in a puff of fibre, sponge, and leather. King heard the gunshot a second later. He already had the engine running and the vehicle in gear, so he floored the accelerator and flung himself across the seat as the pickup slewed across the sand, heading for a polar bear that had been cautiously creeping forwards towards one of the tourist buses. King swung the wheel, missing the beast more by luck than judgement as he chanced a look and headed for the road. The Toyota’s rear wheels sprayed two rooster tails of sand into the air, raining the tourists, buses and guides with stones and sand amid cries of protest and the growling of a fleeing polar bear. As the vehicle slewed onto the frozen dirt roadway, all four wheels gripped and the traction control managed the vehicle, guiding it back into a straight line. King sat up in his seat and focused on the road ahead. The bullet hole that had punched into the rear window was the size of an egg, but the driver’s side window had blown out completely, the bullet having become greatly misshapen after passing through the headrest. So, he knew the direction of the gunman. But he still had no idea who had taken the shot. King glanced at the rifle beside him. Bolt drawn backwards, just three brass shells to call upon. With his thick gloves and zippered pockets, the box of bullets had just as well been back at the hotel.
Ahead of him, shipping containers met the dark, grey beach. King figured Spitsbergen’s crime figures were low. No fence, no security. But the containers would have been the most likely place for a shot to have been taken. King checked the mirror, noted the distance to the buses and guides where he had been parked. It was a long shot for open sights. Nearing four-hundred metres. That was the sort of distance where the shooter would aim for the largest mass of the figure – the solid colour of the target – and not a precision shot, like the head or the heart. The shot had simply been too perfect, passing directly through the space occupied by King’s head less than a second before. King would have estimated the bare minimum of a 3.9x40 scope and a competent marksman behind it. He slowed the pickup, glancing left and right for movement or colour that seemed out of place, and always using his peripheral vision to spot peculiarities and sudden movement.
The frozen dirt track wound past the stacks of shipping containers and skirted the beach once more. King eased the bonnet of the pickup past the outer edge of containers and killed the engine. He stripped off his gloves and tucked them into his jacket and took out the Beretta 92 Compact model that had formed part of his equipment drop the previous evening. It was a traditionally designed semi-automatic 9mm pistol with unmatched accuracy, reliability and durability, and a thirteen-round magazine. King had requested it because of the ergonomics of the controls and large trigger guard, making it a usable weapon in cold climates where fingers were either frozen or gloved.
He took the rifle and worked the bolt before slinging it over his shoulder. Polar bears were still the biggest threat, even with a sniper in the mix. King suspected the sniper would be long gone. No follow-up shot that he’d noticed as he had driven off the beach, and any sniper worth their salt would have either bugged out or taken up an alternative firing point by now. But King doubted self-preservation to be on this person’s agenda. Spitsbergen was a remote and isolated island with only two ways off, both easily policed. The shooter had been willing to compromise their safety to attempt to kill King quite openly. And that meant commitment.
King edged down the side of a shipping container, the pistol in his right hand. His hands were cold, but there was enough adrenalin coursing through his veins to stave off the cold for a while longer. Above him, the perfect shooting platform