The Hunt

62

Thirty minutes into the race of his life, Jaeger saw one of his pursuers break away.

He’d taken out eight of them with the Dragunov, two rounds having missed their target. Kammler’s four remaining men had dispersed across the snowfield in an effort to outflank him. One had now fallen away, but the remaining three were slick operators and none seemed about to give up the chase.

Jaeger reminded himself that they would be well fed, whereas he was half starved. The pursuers kept pace with him, matching ski thrust with ski thrust as he blazed a trail through the moon-washed whiteness. Up ridgelines, down valleys and across snowfields the race continued.

Inch by painful inch he felt the hunters gaining. He realised his greatest problem now: he was beating a path through the snow for his pursuers to follow, which had to make it easier on them. He was drenched with sweat, his lungs heaving fit to burst.

Still he powered onwards. He pulled ahead a small distance on the steeper climbs, only to have his pursuers close the gap again on the descents. Knowing it made sense to seek the higher ground, he veered south, his back to the lake, and began to climb into the mountains.

He reached a vast expanse of fresh snowfall, reminding himself of the avalanche risk. For a split second, he was back in the Alps, guiding some soldiers along the Kuffner Ridge on the Mont Blanc massif, assessing the danger as he moved.

He dragged his mind back to the harsh reality of here and now. An avalanche was the least of his worries. He was running out of options fast. He couldn’t keep skiing forever, and with no more Dragunov rounds, the odds were not good.

And then he was struck by a flash of inspiration: maybe there was a way to finish this.

As he reached the top of the slope, he crouched low and removed a grenade from one of the pouches he wore slung around his belt. He turned and checked behind him.

The slope was the perfect angle and the snow pack fresh and deep.

Below, the three figures were surging up the diagonal path that Jaeger had cut across the snowfield, four hundred feet below and closing fast.

He waited until they were directly beneath him before pulling the pin and letting the retainer clip fly, then hurling the grenade in a high arc. It landed hard a good forty feet downslope, a puff of snow marking where it had disappeared into the soft whiteness.

Jaeger turned and dug deep with his ski poles, pushing into a powerful traverse. From behind him there was the dull thud of the grenade’s detonation, the thick snow muffling the blast. He felt the shock wave of the explosion beneath his feet, and pushed on, skiing for all he was worth.

For a second or so nothing happened, and then the slope behind him started to move.

There was a dull crack as the surface broke, a chasm opening where the entire expanse at the epicentre of the blast began to surge downhill. As the snowfield collapsed across an ever-widening front, it pulled more of the mass above into churning chaos.

The noise of the cataclysm grew to a thunderous roar. Jaeger figured he’d put enough distance between himself and his handiwork to stop, and he turned to see a boiling wave of jumbled snow and blocks of ice tearing downhill like some kind of frozen tsunami, with a force that would carry everything before it.

Or not quite everything.

Of the three figures that had been in pursuit, one had somehow made it across the front of the avalanche before it could claim him. It was some feat of skiing. The others were swept away, arms and legs flailing helplessly as they were buried under hundreds of tons of snow.

Snow that would settle into bullet-hard ice as soon as the avalanche stopped.

But one of his pursuers remained alive.

Jaeger felt their eyes meet across the ravaged hillside. Whoever this lone figure might be, he didn’t unsling his weapon or unleash any rounds. He was clearly too disciplined, knowing the range was too great. Smart – conserving ammo. Knowing Jaeger was all out of rounds on the Dragunov.

It was one-on-one now. A manhunt.

Jaeger knew that he was close to dead beat. He had to find a way to finish this. Almost as one, he and his pursuer turned back to the hillside and recommenced the deadly race.

After twenty minutes, Kammler’s man was gaining on Jaeger, even on the uphill stretches; closing for the kill. Sooner or later, he’d have his target within range of his sub-machine gun.

The words of Jaeger’s SAS instructors blazed through his mind: Fight from the time and place of your own choosing.

He knew what he was looking for; knew what he had to do.