Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021)

pistol, and pushing it back towards the man as he kicked him in the shin with all the force he could muster. Not to cause pain – which it invariably did – but to shove him backwards in the ice formed from the tea he had intentionally spilt. The man had pulled the trigger, but King’s grip had eased the slide of the weapon back just enough to disengage the striker and as long as he kept up the pressure, the weapon was useless. The man slipped and tried to regain his balance, but King kicked out again, and followed up with a headbutt onto the bridge of the man’s nose. The younger man recoiled, his eyes closed, the pain excruciating, but King gripped him by the windpipe, adding a further dimension for the man’s instincts to wrestle with – three different areas for the pain receptors to signal the brain and for the brain to become confused how to deal with each - and pushed him back against the railing. King had the weight and strength advantage, and the man was struggling for traction on the ship’s slippery deck. Then King changed tactics and instead of kicking the man’s shin again, he hooked his foot behind the man’s heel and pulled his leg towards him as he pushed hard on his throat, forcing him backwards against the railing. Momentum, inertia, and gravity came together like the independent notes of a symphony and the man pirouetted over the railing and fell silently twenty feet or so into the icy water. Not even a grunt, let alone a scream, as the man’s instincts were to take a deep breath in mid-air, nothing more.
King did not hear the splash above the monotonous thump of the engines. He had the Makarov in his hand, and he tucked it into his pocket as he walked the length of the railing and searched for him in the water. There was plenty of ice, but no yellow and red flashes of colour of the man’s ski jacket. King realised he had underestimated the ship’s speed, and he looked further out to the stern and saw the man floundering in the water. He turned around and watched the bridge. Above him he thought he saw movement on the upper deck, somebody stepping into a doorway. The light was dim and grey, and it was difficult to judge both distance and movement. But no alarm sounded and nobody else appeared. King turned and looked back at the water for his would-be killer, but the man had gone. Succumbed to the cold and the inevitability of death in such a hostile, merciless environment. Perhaps he had remembered his own hollow words and simply given up the struggle in favour of a swift end. A lungful of water and short struggle under the surface to end the searing pain of the cold. Whatever the scenario, the wake of the ship rolled on, there was no colour in the grey water and King’s mission was unimpeded.
For now.

Chapter Two
 
Three days earlier
Dorset, England
 
“I really do wish there was another way.”
“There is. You’re just not looking at the other options. There’s always another way.” King paused. “The easy way, and the right way. It doesn’t sound like either way is going to do us any good here.”
“We need you to try.”
“We?”
“The service.” Mereweather paused. “Very well, I need you. The ramifications of this are far-reaching.”
“You were giving me time to help with Caroline’s recuperation.”
“To act as a mere nursemaid? Caroline is mending well. I spoke to her before I left town.” Town. King smirked. Mereweather came from a class of people who probably still thought London had a season. “The point is, and don’t think for a moment that this can reflect in your salary, but I can’t think of anyone who is more capable.”
King smiled wryly. “Bullshit. You can’t find anybody crazy enough to take it on. That’s usually how these things work.”
“You are the first person I’ve spoken to.”
“But that is only because you already know the answer the others will give you.” King turned to Dave Lomu sitting at the neighbouring table, a tabloid newspaper open, his eyes flicking up every now and then to the entrance of the café. “Would you have a crack at this, Dave?”
“Shit, no,” the big Fijian said without looking up. He took a bite out of his roll and said through a mouthful of bread, bacon, and brown sauce. “Black people don’t swim well enough. And with a cover as a marine dive engineer, I’m betting there’s a bit more than paddling involved.”
“But you’re from Fiji,” King retorted. “Don’t give me all that white men can’t jump, black men don’t swim, shit. You used to dive for your bloody breakfast.”
“Well, okay. But I doubt I would find a wetsuit that fits.”
King shook his head. “Just as well. You mean a thermal dry suit. You’d most likely die of cold inside thirty minutes in a wetsuit in those temperatures…” He looked back at Simon Mereweather, acting director of MI5. “What about Rashid?”
“Nah, he has a firm sense of his own mortality,” Big Dave interrupted. “Besides, he hates the cold as much as I do, and doesn’t like getting wet either.”
“He’s on assignment anyway,” Mereweather replied tiresomely.
“There’s the SBS. If this isn’t what they do, then I don’t know what is.” King had worked with the Special Boat Service before on an operation to rescue civilians, including intelligence officers in West Africa. It was a long time ago, but he had always held them in high esteem.
“No, he wants the crazy motherfucker who jumps between aircraft without a parachute…” Big Dave jeered through another mouthful. He looked at Simon Mereweather and shrugged. “Tell it how it is, boss. This mission is so bullshit that you know that nobody, but our man here