The Hunt

83

Narov settled down in a seat facing Kammler, getting comfortable.

This was a moment she was not going to rush.

She’d waited a very long time.

He was fastened to his chair in a similar way to that in which she had secured Isselhorst in his house in the Heidelberg woods. If anything, Kammler was even more comprehensively constrained. Not only was his body taped to the steel frame, but she’d also wrapped his entire face and head with gaffer tape, leaving only a thin strip for his eyes – the windows onto the soul.

She needed the eyes free so she could better gauge how high the terror needle was pointing.

She’d cut a small hole in the tape around Kammler’s nose area, just large enough for him to breathe. Otherwise, he was enshrouded completely.

Just as she wanted him.

‘So, you know who I am,’ she began in that calm, eerie monotone that was so universally unnerving; utterly devoid of feeling. Mercy, compassion, empathy – her voice lacked it all, and it was doubly unsettling for it.

‘You can nod to agree with what I say,’ she continued. ‘Oh, you cannot nod? Well then, you can blink with your eyes. One blink means you agree. Two blinks mean you do not. Blink once, now, to show me you understand.’

Kammler didn’t so much as twitch an eyelid.

Without warning, Narov lashed out with stunning power, swinging her pistol around in a ‘ridge-hand strike’, a martial arts technique that brought the topside of the weapon crashing into the side of Kammler’s head.

The force of the blow was such that it sent the man and chair toppling over. Of course, there was no scream from Kammler, for his mouth was firmly taped shut. Narov reached down and dragged him up into a sitting position, then settled before him again. As she did so, a series of muffled shots echoed through the darkened corridor: no doubt Jaeger and Raff, going about their clearance work.

There was little sign of injury to the side of Kammler’s head, but that was mainly because it was a mass of gaffer tape. There could be any amount of damage below.

‘So, we try again.’ Narov intoned, her voice still chillingly flat and unemotional. ‘Blink once to indicate that you understand.’

Kammler blinked.

‘Good. Now, I have only one question for you. You will answer it truthfully, or you will experience suffering of a level you would never imagine possible.’ She paused for effect. ‘Do you understand?’

Kammler blinked once.

‘Apart from those we have just destroyed in your laboratory, do you have any other INDs in existence?’

Narov wasn’t particularly worried about radiation leaking from the lab. Uranium was not nearly as radioactive as people seemed to believe. Only when a nuclear device was properly detonated did it produce a cloud of lethal fallout.

By way of answer, Kammler blinked twice.

‘There are no more INDs? Are you certain? Please think very, very carefully. You see, we are only really just getting started…’

Kammler blinked once.

‘To be clear, Mr Kammler, there are no INDs anywhere in the world that you control? They were all here?’

Kammler blinked once.

At that moment, a voice rang out from the far end of the corridor. ‘Falk Konig! Falk Konig coming through!’

Narov spun in her seat as a pathetic figure stumbled through the doorway. Kammler’s son was a pale shadow of the man that Narov had grown close to barely a few months ago. Back then, the German-educated conservationist had been running Kammler’s private game reserve at Katavi, in East Africa.

Falk had been something of a hero figure to Narov, despite the blood that ran through his veins. Disregarding that fact – no one gets to choose their parents – his tireless efforts to safeguard Africa’s big game had won her undying respect. The two of them had bonded over their mutual love of animals – the elephants and rhino first and foremost – even amidst the dark secrets of the Katavi reserve.

Kammler’s son had rebelled against the family’s legacy. His taking a different surname was all part of an effort to cut the ties to their Nazi past. But when Hank Kammler disappeared, Falk Konig had been branded an accessory to his father’s crime, and he too had become a global fugitive.

A hunted man.

Only Narov – and Jaeger to a certain extent – had chosen to believe in him; to keep the faith.

When she and Falk had first met, he had been a dashing six-foot-two wildlife warrior, who flew daring sorties across the African bush tracking the poaching gangs. His shock of wild blonde hair and straggly beard had lent him a somewhat hippyish air – an exotic if dishevelled eco-warrior look.

Or so Narov had thought. The figure that stood before her now was a pale shadow of that. His hair was matted with dried blood, his eye sockets were sunken and dark-ringed, and he hobbled on an injured leg.

Narov felt a surge of sympathy for him, quickly followed by a stab of unease.

Jaeger must have sent him here for a reason.

No doubt the son knew something of his father’s dark secrets.