The Hunt

43

Jaeger and his team were gathered around Colonel Evandro’s computer, the military-encrypted internet link providing a secure video feed to their distant Falkenhagen headquarters. Peter Miles was speaking, and they were glued to his every word.

‘We agree with your analysis, plus all intelligence from our end suggests that the plane isn’t terminating at that jungle strip. It’s a stopover. Refuelling. Time for the crew to grab some shut-eye. But mostly it’s a ruse. A cut-off. A decoy destination.’

The switch had gone like clockwork. The AN-12 had flown on to Los Niños’s base with its Trojan horse tungsten-bomb cargo, apparently with no further dramas. Which must have been as much of a relief to Oleksandr Savchenko, Ukraine’s finest pilot, as it was to Jaeger and his team.

Right now, the tracking device revealed that the crate was sitting on that aircraft in Dodge, beaming out its signal as regular as clockwork.

‘So what d’you reckon to the China connection?’ Jaeger queried. ‘What the pilot mentioned. Is it credible?’

‘Yes, as it happens.’ Miles replied. ‘We figure they’ve flown to Colombia as a blind. It’s not unusual with these criminal-narco-mafioso networks. Colombia’s where the trail goes cold. Or at least it’s supposed to. Meanwhile, the HEU gets spirited to the other side of the world.’

Miles searched out Narov. ‘Plus, there’s been an unexpected development… Irina, I have something of a personal question for you. You and Falk Konig – Kammler’s son – you made something of a special connection on your last mission, I understand?’

‘You can say that again,’ Jaeger cut in. ‘Became intimately acquainted. Sparks flew.’

Raff practically choked on his coffee. Alonzo tried to kill an almighty great snigger. Narov gave the daggers. If looks could kill, Jaeger was dead and buried.

‘Falk and I shared a mutual interest, yes,’ she replied tightly. ‘For wildlife. For animals. So yes, by the time we left, I viewed him as a… close friend. That was all. Nothing more.’ She glared at Jaeger. ‘Nothing like what that Schwachkopf is implying.’

With that, she stalked out the room.

Her sudden departure was met with an uncomfortable silence. It was Raff who broke it. He eyed Jaeger despairingly. ‘That went well. Always had the touch. And still got it, by the looks of things.’

Jaeger winced. ‘Well, it’s true. They were like a couple of lovebirds.’

During their previous mission, Kammler’s son, Falk, had played a somewhat ambivalent role. While Narov had believed he was on the side of the angels, Jaeger hadn’t been convinced.

Falk had changed his surname from Kammler to Konig, apparently in an effort to distance himself from the family’s Nazi legacy. But after Jaeger and his team had nailed Kammler’s dark plot to bring back the Reich, Falk had dropped off the radar. Completely.

Jaeger’s last communication with him had been a text message, in which Falk had tried to exonerate himself: My father has taken refuge in his lair… I am innocent. He is a madman.

After that, silence.

In Jaeger’s book, that was suspicious. You didn’t do a disappearing act like that unless you had reason. Why run unless you were guilty?

‘Falk’s been calling Irina,’ Miles announced. ‘Repeatedly, over an eight-hour period. He’s been using a Chinese-made ETACTO TLX, a kind of poor man’s satphone. It’s got great connectivity over China and comes equipped with two SIM slots. He chose to use his regular SIM card, in spite of the fact that it’s at the top of our global watch list. Seems he set his phone to automatic call repeat. Of course, he got no answer, Irina being in the Brazilian jungle.’

‘So Falk’s surfaced. Where is he?’ Jaeger queried.

‘Well, there’s the thing. He’s in China. A remote border region in the depths of the Himalayas.’ Miles eyed Jaeger for a long moment. ‘Go fetch Irina. Say sorry, and get her back in here. You all need to hear this.’

Jaeger headed outside. Finding Narov alone, he didn’t know quite what to say. He figured he’d keep it simple.

‘Look, I’m sorry. I was just messing with you. It didn’t mean anything.’

Narov turned on him. ‘You know something? I’m sick of you and I am sick of your blind stupidity.’ A beat, fraught with emotion. Jaeger knew exactly what she was driving at: the bond – the electrifying attraction – between the two of them.

He knew in his heart that he’d fallen for her. It was the love that wouldn’t speak its name. Guilt over Ruth made him try to bury it; deny it.

‘You want to know the truth?’ Narov continued. ‘You want to know why I went off hunting Kammler solo? Because I no longer trusted you. I needed to hide it from you, Kahuhara’ga.’

Kahuhara’ga. The Hunter. Months back, Jaeger had been given that name by a tribe of isolated Amazonian Indians who had sacrificed themselves in order to aid his mission. Narov had started using the name teasingly. Yet now she seemed to have lost all faith in him.

Jaeger ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t find any words.

‘You think I would have shared what I was doing, knowing you would repeat it all to your wife?’ Narov demanded. ‘To her. As if you can still trust her!’

‘You think she’d betray us? You think she’d feed it to Kammler? But you’ve got no proof.’ Jaeger had found his voice at last. ‘Not one shred of evidence. There’s no way you can be certain… Anyway, the fact is, you never liked her.’

Narov shook her head despairingly. ‘Tell me: prior to her disappearing act, did you speak to her? Tell her anything about Kammler that could have triggered her to leave? Did you?’

Jaeger cast his mind back to the email he’d sent shortly after the St Georgen tunnel discoveries: I’ve stumbled upon something here. There’s a chance that Kammler might still be alive.

Maybe it wasn’t an abduction. Maybe that email had caused his wife to run. But to run to Kammler? The more he tried to fathom it, the more he just couldn’t be certain. He didn’t know what to think any more.

‘She’s got PTSD,’ he objected mulishly. ‘She’s not thinking straight. She’s confused and damaged and acting irrationally. Plus there are any number of ways to explain her disappearance, starting with the obvious: Kammler’s people seized her…’

His words tailed off to nothing.

He needed to start being more honest with himself. Long ago he’d fallen for Narov’s elusive charms. At the time, he was married, with kids he adored and a wife he loved. Not any more. He knew he was losing Ruth; maybe he’d already lost her. At the same time he was still trying to push Narov away.

But try as he might, his connection with this enigma of a woman was growing more powerful by the day. His heart was being torn away from the woman he’d once loved, and he feared that if he stepped closer to Narov’s fire and ice, he was going to burn.

With a supreme effort of will, he forced all of that from his mind.

There was only one way to settle this: find Kammler.