The Hunt

70

Jaeger and Narov emerged from the bunker into the full glare of the mid-morning light. By their reckoning they were fifty seconds short of the detonation. They walked forward until they were silhouetted on the ridgeline where Kammler could see them.

As they began to move downslope, Jaeger felt the Iridium vibrate. He answered.

‘Nice to see you, Mr Jaeger,’ Kammler announced. ‘And you, Ms Narov. I have heard so much about you, of course. Now, if you would leave your weapons there and keep your hands where we can see them… But you are four. Where are your two friends?’

‘Just getting their shit together. They’ll be—’

Jaeger’s words were cut short as a massive concussion rang out along the ridgeline, seeming to shake the entire hillside. He turned to see debris hurled high into the air, as a pall of grey smoke fisted skywards above the pipelines. An ear-splitting roar swept down the valley like a gigantic express train thundering through a long and ghostly tunnel.

The noise seemed to bore into Jaeger’s head, even as the torrent of water foamed down the mountainside like a tidal wave on steroids. The leading edge of the flood plummeted with such force that it tore boulders from the hillside, hurling them high into the air, so that they landed in a shower of sparks. Second by second, the churning head of the tsunami thrust a boiling mass of rocks, trees and mud ever closer to the plant.

Jaeger and Narov started to run, slipping and sliding downslope. Below them, the unstoppable surge hammered into the plant’s defensive perimeter. The high-tensile fencing buckled and broke, as if it was straw caught in a monster hailstorm. Coils of razor wire crashed down. Massive boulders slammed into the concrete fence posts, which broke with a series of deafening cracks.

The first of the buildings to be hit was the generator hall, which lay directly below the ruptured pipelines’ triple barrels. Within seconds, water-driven rocks and debris hammered into its rear like a volley of cannon fire. As the cascade carved an ever deeper path, so the flow grew in power, ripping doors from hinges and punching in windows.

Boiling water thick with debris surged inside the generator hall, bringing with it a thick sludge of mud, gravel and shredded tree branches. The flood engulfed the first of the massive turbines, short-circuiting the electrics in a cloud of roiling steam shot through with angry sparks.

The tsunami thundered onwards, the roar from the ruptured pipelines reverberating across the valley. It swamped the accommodation block and hydrolysis plant. Scores of local workers turned and fled. They had one aim only: to save themselves.

The only building that escaped the devastation was the laboratory, tucked into cover and set a little higher up the valley. But as the surge engulfed the last of the generators, the lights flickered out. All of the machinery – including Professor Kangjon’s 3D printers, which had been diligently constructing the components for the final clutch of INDs – ground to a halt.

In the high-security end of the lab, Professor Kangjon crawled out from under a table where he’d taken shelter. He groped for a light switch. His fingers found it and flicked it several times, but nothing happened.

The lab had few windows and it was frighteningly dark. The professor had always been afraid of the dark, ever since he was nine years old and the North Korean security police had come for his father in the middle of the night, hustling him away, never to be seen again.

He switched on his Maglite and tried to find his way to the exit. He had only one thought now: to get the hell out of the building and save his own skin.

On the heels of the floodwater came the assaulters.

Jaeger thundered downslope, trying to keep one desperate eye on his wife and Peter Miles. But as he flashed through the scrub and vaulted over boulders, they were lost from view. He broke through a patch of dense cover, and spied the shattered perimeter fence lying barely a few dozen feet before him. He raced for it, Narov hot on his heels. His eyes darted right again, and he realised that Kammler and his hostages had disappeared.

Maybe Ruth and Miles had seized their chance to escape.

Or had they been dragged away by their captors?

Jaeger just didn’t know.

Right now he had to concentrate on the job in hand, which was eliminating Kammler’s gunmen. He forced himself to blank all other thoughts from his mind.

Speed, aggression, surprise.

Speed, aggression, surprise…