The Hunt

48

Narov grabbed her iPad, and pulled up one of Brooks’s documents. It was entitled: ‘The inevitability of ISIS achieving a nuclear terror strike’.

‘Did you see this? Background briefing.’

Jaeger shook his head. He’d trawled through the key documents – the mission-specific ones – but had then started to tire.

‘You know how large your average IND is?’ Narov continued. ‘About the size of a small fridge. You know how much it weighs? As little as a hundred kilos. Basically, you could carry it in an SUV. So while it is not exactly Ryanair hand luggage, it’s incredibly easy to hide. Carry across borders. Conceal. Deliver.’

She fixed Jaeger with a look, worry etched in her eyes. ‘We have to presume that Kammler has developed multiple delivery systems. Plus the links he’s forged with organised crime and drugs mean he’s got covert trafficking networks he can utilise.’

‘Yeah, but consider the upside,’ Jaeger countered. ‘It’s us.’

He reached out to touch Narov’s arm in a gesture of reassurance. Typically, she seemed to recoil – to freeze – at the prospect of any physical contact other than for the practical reasons of soldiering.

Jaeger shrugged it off. He glanced at his watch. ‘We’re one hour forty-five out from Takhli. When we touch down, there’ll be an AN-32 waiting on the apron. It’s two thousand klicks north to our target. That’s five hours’ flight time. We’ll be on the ground tonight, and at the target by the early hours of tomorrow morning. Miles has confirmed that Bear 12 is airborne and flying a similar route to the one we’ve taken. It’s got less range, so more fuelling stops, but it won’t be far behind.

‘I’d say seventy-two hours from now, the tungsten device gets delivered to Kammler’s headquarters,’ he continued. ‘We’ll be eyes on. We’ll see it taken into his IND lab. Then we detonate. That’s a very large part of the problem taken care of.’

‘And then?’ Narov challenged. ‘How do we finish it?’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘That I can’t say. Not until we’re visual. The plan of attack will shake out of whatever we find on the ground. But either way, this time we finish it. Finish Kammler. For good.’

Narov pulled up one of the satellite images on her iPad screen. ‘There appear to be three separate facilities: what they think is the laboratory; the generator hall and plant; plus the accommodation block.’

‘Yep. And they’re well spaced out. The tungsten blast will take out the lab, that’s for sure. But the rest of it: that’s for us. We’ll need some kind of diversion. And our usual calling cards: speed. Aggression. Surprise.’

‘You’ve seen the thickness of the walls?’ Narov queried. ‘We’ll need demolitions gear. Plus whatever kind of firepower Brooks can offer us, ’cause we’re bound to be seriously outnumbered.’

‘On that level at least we’re sorted,’ Jaeger confirmed. ‘I’ve been told there’s a real war-in-a-box waiting for us at Takhli. And I’ve made sure they included a Dragunov with your name on it.’

As Jaeger knew only too well, the Dragunov – the iconic Russian sniper rifle, with a ten-round magazine – was Narov’s weapon of choice. He’d asked for a Dragunov SVD-S – the shortened lightweight version, with the folding stock – to be included in the weapons package that Brooks had prepared. As America’s key ally in the region, the Thai military had proved extremely accommodating.

The ghost of a smile played across Narov’s features. ‘Thanks. You remembered. Uncharacteristically thoughtful.’

Was there just a hint of playfulness in her tone? It said a lot about their relationship, Jaeger reflected, when the only opportunity the two of them had for flirting was discussing the best means to kill.

‘So, total weight?’ Narov added. ‘And how long do we need provisioning for?’

‘Seven days. At that kind of altitude, we’re constrained by how much we can carry. Assume twenty-five kilos per person, not including weapons. We’ll have a pulk, with a further hundred-kilo capacity. So that’s two hundred kilos between us. But with munitions, grenades, demolitions gear, batteries, comms kit, surveillance kit, and cold-weather and survival gear, we’re left with precious little room for rations. We need to get this done quickly, or we’ll be chewing on thin air.’

‘What about the locals?’ Narov probed. ‘Brooks figures there are several dozen Chinese employed at the plant. Unsuspecting, of course, since the place has perfect cover.’

‘We try to minimise local casualties. But it’s going to be incredibly hard to ID friend from foe in the kind of fight that’s coming. We’ll do our best. Trust our instincts.’ Jaeger paused. ‘But Kammler and his people – no one gets out alive. The risks are too great.’

‘No one? What about Falk?’

‘Falk…’ Jaeger shrugged. ‘If he’s onside and no risk to the mission, then he lives. But you better be damned certain…’ He paused. ‘For that matter, we all better be damn certain he’s onside. Falk’s phone calls… if they’re designed to lure us into a trap, well, we’re buggered. And so, my dear, is the entire fucking world.’

Narov nodded. ‘We cannot afford to fail. But trust me: Falk will not have betrayed us.’ She fixed Jaeger with a look. ‘As to your wife…’

Jaeger flinched. ‘If she’s in that place, the same rules apply. We have to be certain. But leave it to me. It’s my call.’