Hunter Killer - Alex King Series 12 (2021)

families.”
“And bringing their bodies home will heal a wound inside you?”
King hadn’t gotten as far as the specifics of the operation. He would have loved for the bodies of the crew to be returned to the grieving families, but it wasn’t going to be the right time to tell Caroline he would be attempting to blow up their underwater grave and release them to the deep instead. He settled on, “Seeing that the Russians don’t get something usable out of this will,” he replied truthfully. “A tissue sample or biopsy could change everything.”
Caroline nodded. She had served in army intelligence before becoming a field operative with the Security Service, so she knew that Britain had its enemies and what lengths they would go to strike at them as well as their allies. “Since we’ve been working together, I worry when you go into the field alone,” she said quietly. “You need someone to have your back.” She shrugged. “And it can’t very well be me, because I’m still not fit enough…” She trailed off and King knew it was because she had recently voiced that she wasn’t sure that she ever truly would be again.
“I’ll be okay,” he said a little lamely. “It’s not a tough job,” he lied. “Just room for one, by the sounds of it. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Kiss me,” she said quietly. She smiled as he made his way over and kissed her tenderly. She rubbed his shoulders and said, “Just bugger off and get it done. I’m not going to jinx it by wishing you good luck and nonsense like that. So, don’t trust anybody, give the other guy hell and get your retaliation in first.” She broke away first, leaning back in the leather chair. “And you were right, you were getting under my feet. Sorry I didn’t hide it well enough.” She paused, blinking a tear away. “Now, get out of here. Go and get the job done.”

Chapter Five
 
Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen Island
Svalbard Archipelago  
800 miles from the North Pole  
King stepped out onto the runway, his boots crunching on the loose sand and salt chippings that had recently been spread, keeping the ice at bay. Except it was failing. The ground felt like a skate rink underfoot, with a layer of compacted frozen snow over what he guessed was once a tarmacked runway. He did a temperature test, sniffing hard through his nose, the moisture freezing and sticking his nostrils together. The air had felt sharp, and clean and salty. He figured it was – 16ºc and the digital sign near the airport terminal, which relayed temperature and time alternately, confirmed it as – 18ºc. In the bay, icebergs bobbed and dipped on the gentle swell. It was early April, just out of winter.
There was no passport control or customs check. That had been taken care of in Oslo. But he hadn’t been able to get by with just a carry-on because of all the bulky thermal clothes he would require, and so needed to collect his bags from the terminal. He also needed to change, the cold biting viciously at him, so he couldn’t simply make his way out of the unfenced airport. Besides, he had been warned about polar bears back in Oslo. Regularly scared off from town, it was a different matter outside the town limits where it was illegal to either travel without a weapon, or a person who was carrying one. Polar bears outnumbered the population of the island by three to one.
Inside the terminal, the warm air felt heavy and thick. King headed for the lone carousel. The flight had mainly consisted of Svalbard residents who had been shopping on the mainland, but among them had been people like King. Or at least the cover King had taken. He looked up from the carousel, nodded at the young Swedish marine biologist he had helped with her luggage back at Oslo. She had her diving equipment with her, including two tanks which had been emptied and the valves removed for inspection before the flight. She was young and keen and inexperienced. King also had diving equipment with him but knew enough to figure he’d get his tanks on location, and that he would prefer them freshly filled in his presence anyway, so couldn’t see the point of her travelling with them in the first place, but he at least needed the kit to back up his cover story. The young woman had introduced herself as Madeleine but must have become well-acquainted with a fellow passenger during the flight. He looked a decade younger than King and spent more on grooming products in a week than King would have in a year. He could already see from the dynamic that she thought she had struck up a genuine friendship, but the young man was on the hunt for more than friendship and looked to be going in for the kill. She had mentioned that she would be spending the night in a local hotel in Longyearbyen before boarding her ship – he suspected they all would be – but he already foresaw the young man upping his game further in the hotel bar.
He wondered how many of the passengers would be travelling with him. But he supposed he’d know soon enough. He tried to work out what marine engineers, oceanographers and marine biologists looked like. Madeleine was in her mid-twenties, sported a discreet nose piercing and had a few braids in her wavy shoulder-length blonde hair. She looked like a surfer to King. He looked around the carousel. A few of the men looked casual, a little unkempt. He realised he was stereotyping now and gave up. The carousel started and the first of the luggage came out. Everybody stepped forward, but King remained where he was, studying the passengers and assessing who, if anybody, he was up against. And then he found