The Hunt

72

There was a burst of fire from barely fifty yards away: the distinctive crack-crack-crack of an assault rifle unleashing an aimed burst. Moments later, Jaeger heard Raff’s voice come up over the SELEX.

‘Desalination plant clear. Five enemy accounted for. Covering your move forward.’

‘Roger. Out.’

Jaeger rested against the wall as he ratcheted a fresh 40mm grenade into the launcher’s breech. Beside him, Narov threw the Dragunov onto her back with its sling, and drew her pistol. Like Jaeger’s it was a Sig Sauer P228, only Narov had lucked out: she’d managed to get one with an extended twenty-round magazine.

Somewhere on her person she’d have her diminutive Beretta 92FS tucked away. Narov always carried a backup to her backup weapon. Which reminded Jaeger: he still had Vladimir Ustanov’s QSZ-92 stuffed in the rear of his waistband.

Narov’s P228 was as good a weapon as any for clearing the accommodation block, and she certainly wouldn’t be using her sniper rifle. It was far too long and unwieldy for the rapid-fire close-quarter-battle environment they were about to step into.

Jaeger had a sneaking suspicion that Kammler had pulled most of his gunmen back to defend the laboratory. He’d counted two dozen earlier, during Kammler’s piece of theatre with the kneeling hostages. That number, added to the dozen skiers that Jaeger and his team had eliminated earlier, made thirty-six in all.

He doubted whether Kammler’s original guard force would have numbered a great deal more. But presumption was the mother of all fuck-ups; they needed to clear every building to be absolutely certain, and quickly. Even now, desperate and under attack, Kammler could be about to trigger those bombs that had been delivered to target.

He eyed Narov. ‘On my signal, join me at the doorway. We go in as one.’

Narov nodded her silent assent. She stuffed the P228 barrel-first down the front of her combats and slid the Dragunov into her shoulder again. Then she leant out from behind the wall, sweeping the terrain around the laboratory for targets.

As she unleashed her first round, Jaeger broke cover.

‘Moving now!’ he yelled into his SELEX.

He sensed rather than heard the bursts of grenade fire, as Alonzo and Raff unleashed 40mm rounds from the cover of the desalination plant. He sprinted for all he was worth, knowing he was exposed to every gunman positioned at the laboratory. Sure enough, and despite the suppressing fire, rounds slammed into the masonry either side of him.

Change of plan, Jaeger told himself as a caved-in window opened on his right shoulder. He dived through it, landing on his front in a pool of filthy water and rolling once to break his fall. Moments later, he was on his feet in a crouch, soaking wet, his Diemaco levelled and doing a rapid sweep of the room.

It was empty.

He had intended to wait for Narov at the building’s shattered doorway. It was standard operating procedure to clear a building in pairs, so you could watch each other’s back. But the fire had been too intense, and he needed to warn her.

‘Gone through first window on right,’ he radioed.

‘Seen.’

As he crouched at the window to give covering fire for Narov, Jaeger noted that his assault rifle was spattered with grime from where he’d landed in the water and dirt. He’d need to clean it, for sand and grit could seize up a weapon’s working parts. But no time for that now.

Seconds later, Narov dived through the shattered window. Jaeger turned away, and they both flicked on the flashlights attached to their weapons. It would only get darker the further into the building they went.

Wordlessly they moved across to the doorway leading out of the room, gravel and debris crunching underfoot, water sloshing around their ankles. Everywhere there was sodden furniture turned on its side, or rammed against the walls by the sheer force of the flood.

Jaeger clambered over a soaking mattress jammed up against the doorway. The door itself had been forced open and was lying drunkenly, half ripped from its hinges. He stepped around it into the corridor, pivoting left, his P228 swinging into the aim. At the same instant Narov took up a mirror position behind him, so they were back to back, covering either direction.

They began to move down the eerie, echoing space, checking the rooms on either side. Doors had been ripped open by the floodwater, leaving the place littered with wreckage and seemingly deserted.

They reached the far end of the corridor, where a flight of metal steps led up to a second floor. Jaeger paused, moving to one side of the final door before the stairs. This one was covered with steel sheeting, and despite the floodwaters, it remained intact. Narov flattened herself against the doorway’s other side.

Reaching around, Jaeger tried the handle. Once. Twice. It didn’t budge. Firmly locked. There was no point trying to kick it in. This wasn’t the movies. He was more likely to break a leg or injure himself than bust through a steel door.

‘Blowing the lock,’ he mouthed at Narov.