The Hunt

19

Jaeger awoke sometime later. The stress and shock of the day had exhausted him. But now he sat bolt upright, the image of the nightmare playing through his mind.

He’d been underwater. At sea. Fighting against a hated assailant. He’d already stabbed the man, using Irina Narov’s dagger, but his opponent just wouldn’t die. This was the man who had kidnapped Jaeger’s wife and child. Jaeger hated him as he would never have imagined possible.

His opponent was massive and hugely powerful, and not the type to give in. That much Jaeger knew, for way back they had been on SAS selection together. Jaeger had passed, but the big man had crashed and burnt, and all because he’d tried to cheat by taking performance-enhancing drugs.

It was Jaeger who had discovered that he was doping, and he was immediately binned.

In that moment had been born a lifelong enmity, although Jaeger hadn’t realised it at the time. Hence why the big man had been so keen to come after Jaeger’s wife and child. Revenge. Sweet revenge. But not so sweet when Jaeger had finally tracked him down, driving the blade in deep.

Steve Jones. Jaeger had left him entangled within a mass of writhing sharks driven wild by the smell of blood. A dead man, or so he had presumed. So why were those dark scenes coming back to haunt him now?

A new set of images came unbidden into his head. He remembered how, as he’d swum towards the surface, he’d dropped Narov’s knife. An iconic commando fighting knife, the razor-sharp tapered blade had slipped from his grasp and sunk from view.

But now he could see its fate somehow playing out before him: the knife drifting downwards… coming to rest in Steve Jones’s grasp… The big man using it to eviscerate the nearest shark, slicing its gut cavity open… The wounded animal spinning away voiding gouts of blood… the other sharks following.

Blood was blood: the sharks didn’t care.

And a final image: Steve Jones, one hand gripping his wounded neck, the other the knife, kicking for the surface.

Jaeger flicked on the light. He sat for several seconds in utter silence. Jones alive? Was it even possible? And what had made him imagine all of this now?

The answer came to him with a jolt. He roused himself and moved to the desk, powering up the laptop. He stared at the screen as he replayed the last few minutes of footage, showing the team of killers going about their murderous work.

There. He punched pause. The image froze and he gazed at it in silent disbelief. There, strapped to the thigh of the largest of the mystery gunmen, was a Fairbairn–Sykes commando fighting knife, to give it its full name. The same knife that Irina Narov had carried, and Jaeger had let slip from his grasp in the sea.

He lived by the mantra: Expect the unexpected. It was what had kept him alive all these years. But this – it just seemed so impossible.

He pressed play, eyes glued to the movements of the hulking figure. There was little doubt about it any more: the bulging forearms and shoulders; the sheer power of the man as he smashed apart the film gear with his bare hands.

The way his stance radiated rage and hatred; hatred and rage.

No doubt about it: it was Jones.

Jaeger killed the image, then sat back and tried to get his breathing under control. The realisation alone had set him hyperventilating. One thing was clear: if Steve Jones had survived, Jaeger was going to have to kill him. Again.

He was tempted to fire up the Evoque right now and drive hell for leather for St Georgen, in case Jones was still somewhere in those tunnels. To finish this for good. But gradually he gained control over his blind shock and rage. Jones would be long gone, he reasoned. Even if he wasn’t, there were more of them, and Jones alone had proved a fearsome adversary.

But most importantly, Jaeger had Uncle Joe to care for.

Plus there was something else. Something that went far deeper. Jones’s reappearance was shock enough: but his reappearance there, at St Georgen, in a top-secret tunnel built by the Nazis and overseen by SS General Hans Kammler…

Well, the ramifications were hard even for Jaeger to fully comprehend.

If Jones had been placed in command of a team of killers charged with evacuating the tunnel and terminating all who might have discovered its dark secret, what was that secret? Who had sent him? And why?

Whatever the answers, Jaeger sensed they couldn’t be good. Not with Jones involved. Not with such a direct link to a dark Nazi past and to SS General Kammler himself.

This was bigger than Jaeger alone. Jaeger knew in his gut what he had to do: he had to make for Falkenhagen, to see if the full resources of the Secret Hunters might fathom this one.

He picked up his smartphone and dialled. It was four o’clock in the morning, but Peter Miles – the group’s chief – had assured him that he was always on duty. No matter what time of day, Jaeger should feel free to make contact.

A sleepy voice answered. ‘William? What time d’you call this?’

Despite everything, Jaeger smiled. Miles’s voice had that effect on him. No matter what might happen, the man seemed imperturbable; he had an unshakeable calm about him. It made him the perfect boss for the movement, and for brainstorming what on earth Jaeger’s discoveries might signify.

‘Something’s cropped up. We need to meet. I’m with Uncle Joe, so summon whoever else you can muster.’

Miles chuckled. ‘Funny you should say that. I was about to call you. Though I would have left it to a more sociable hour. Something’s cropped up our end too. So yes, we very much do need to meet.’

‘Fine. We’ll come to you. Normal place?’

‘The usual.’

‘We’ll be there by midday.’

Jaeger signed off the call and logged onto the internet. Even as he’d been speaking to Peter, he’d made the decision that he needed to let Ruth know – at least the very basics.

He didn’t know what the St Georgen discovery might signify exactly, but the last thing he wanted was for Ruth to read something in the press, finding out that way that their nemesis might still be alive.

That would send her into a total tailspin.

He typed out a short email. After their last, fractious phone call, he figured he’d keep it businesslike and short.

Hi Ruth,

Listen, don’t want to alarm you, but I’ve stumbled upon something here. There’s a chance that Kammler might still be alive. I’m looking into it – low-profile, so don’t fret – but it’ll delay me a day or so. Didn’t want you to see something on the news that might freak you out.

W

Email sent, he googled the quickest route from Munich to Falkenhagen.