The Hunted Read online

  “To be frank, I agree,” she answered, probably stunning him, though she couldn’t see his expression. “Let Dubai return to the world’s economy. In fact, I’d like to see the emirates return to power and undermine the Russian economy. I’d like to see Mother Russia fall to her knees. But I still want the gold and the locations of the oil reserves.”

  “I’m willing to negotiate,” said Hussein.

  “No, you’re not!” cried Chopra. “There’s no negotiation with this ... this terrorist!”

  “Shut up, old man, does it look like we have a choice here?” shouted Hussein. “Now listen to me, Snow Maiden, or whatever your name is, he can get you the gold but not the oil. I’ll give you the locations, but you’re going to split that gold with me.”

  She marveled over the boy’s naïveté and actually found it as charming as it was pathetic. “Okay,” she said quickly. “I’m willing to do that.”

  “Very well, then. We have a deal.”

  “There’s no deal, Hussein. You don’t know who she’s working with. We’re not giving her anything. And that gold doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to your country and to the other nations who’ve made deposits.”

  “If you don’t deal with me, then you’ll both die,” she told them. “And Dubai will perish with you. At least if you work with me there’s a chance the country will return to power. I have friends who can help. We have the same goals, just different methods of achieving them.”

  “Are you listening to her, Chopra? I’m sixteen. I’m not going to die. Now you work for me, old man. You take orders from me! And this is what we’re going to do!”

  “Don’t make this mistake,” Chopra said. “Let me talk to you alone. Let me tell you about what your father really wanted. Let me share with you my own dreams for our country.”

  “Our country?”

  “Yes. Ours.”

  “You’re from India.”

  “But my heart is in Dubai, with you. Don’t make this deal with the devil. You haven’t given me a chance to speak with you, to express your father’s wishes, to share with you all the things—all the dreams—he shared with me.”

  The Snow Maiden grinned darkly at the boy. “He’s quite dramatic. This is, in the end, nothing more than business. And we both know that.”

  “Dubai will never rise again,” said Hussein. “It’s nuked. It’s dead. Just a contaminated junkyard.”

  “Please, Hussein, you can’t think that way,” said Chopra. “You must listen to me!”

  “All I can do now is take some of that gold and try to build a future for myself and my sisters. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Do you hear me, Chopra?”

  “No, you’re wrong. This is wrong! Please, Hussein, I’m begging you ...”

  “No more talk, old man,” said the Snow Maiden. “The young sheikh has made up his mind.”

  Brent sprayed himself a tight path through the burning grass, then tossed the extinguisher down to Heston, who seized it and continued hosing down the hatch area.

  With his eyes tearing heavily, Brent hoisted the still-unconscious Park over his shoulders and, with Lakota’s help, climbed out of the Sphinx and began running through the foam-covered path paralleled on both sides by rising flames. Brent could do little more than run half-blind, the footfalls and screams and pounding of his heart driving him on as once more images of fireballs swelled in his mind’s eye. Oh, yes, there in his mind, the images were quite clear.

  That blaze of glory he sought was suddenly not far out of reach. He realized the grass fire would ignite the fumes inside the Sphinx’s ruptured fuel tanks. And within a few more seconds twin booms resounded behind him, followed by a concussion that swept him off his feet. He smashed into the ground, and Park went tumbling off his back.

  Copeland was at his side as he hit the ground. Brent rolled over and rubbed his eyes. “I’m good. It’s Park! It’s Park!”

  “Roger that, sir, I got him.”

  As the medic began to examine Park, Brent sat and his vision began to clear. He was trying to catch his breath but almost lost it again as he took in his surroundings.

  The landscape had contorted into a postapocalyptic charcoal painting, with a ribbon of mottled white separating two fields of unrelenting fire. Those fields swept out toward a greater curtain of flames beneath which lay the shattered remains of the Sphinx, its rotors tipped forward into the dirt but still rotating like a pair of massive grass edgers. The fuselage had split in two and was bathed in orange and blue beneath the faint shadow of the wings, one intact, the other hanging half off at an improbable angle. A mound of still-settling earth completely obscured the aircraft’s nose, where yet another dust cloud was still rising into the air.

  And above it all hung a morning sky filling steadily with wide columns of black smoke, while smaller ones corkscrewed upward on the periphery of the crash site.

  Lakota was muttering a roll call to herself, while the pilot and co-pilot were just behind Brent, talking with the tower and their superiors on portable radios.

  Brent coughed, cleared his throat, and activated his Cross-Com. “Hammer, this is Ghost Lead, over.”

  Dennison appeared in a data box in one corner of his HUD. “Ghost Lead, this is Hammer. We’ve got evac transports en route. ETA should be ten minutes.”

  “Roger that. I’ve got a man down and a sky busier than A’stan on a weekday. What the hell’s going on?”

  “The Russians know she’s in London, Brent. They’re dropping in ground troops. Could be a full battalion.”

  “They’re fools. We’ll cut ’em off. And they won’t damage the infrastructure, not when the Brits are buying all their oil.”

  “We know that. And they know we know. This is just a diversion. We haven’t picked up Haussler yet, but we know he’s there somewhere. We finally got the sister to talk, and we have the location of the boy. He’s near Sandhurst. GPS coordinates uploading now but we can’t get our satellites in close for a look. The Russians are jamming us. You’ll proceed there immediately. The Voecklers will rendezvous, but they’ll get there first.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a little problem in London.”

  “Yes, you do ...”

  Brent blinked hard to clear his vision, then regarded Copeland, who was holding an oxygen mask up to Park’s face. Park was conscious and breathing steadily.

  “He’ll be all right. Might be a little high for a while,” said the medic. “Fumes got to him before he could mask up.”

  “Thanks, bro. Good job. I mean it.”

  “Thank you, sir. You sure you’re all right? Looks like you could use a little more oxygen.”

  “No, no, I’m good. I’ve just never liked flying.”

  Copeland cracked a smile. “Me neither, sir. And I hate landing even more.”

  Brent gave a little snort and shook his head at the burning field. Then he turned back.

  Clouds of dust rose in the distance like small dust devils, and Lakota, who’d lifted a pair of binoculars to her face, cried, “Here come our rides! Get ready to saddle up!”

  She then jogged over to Brent. “Saw the new GPS on our target.”

  “Yep.”

  “You think she’s still there?”

  Brent took a long breath. “Without eyes in the sky? All we can do is hope—and get our asses in gear.”

  The Brits had sent out a pair of Huskies that resembled the JSF’s HMMWV or “Hummer” but were smaller, so the team had been forced to pile into the small flatbeds. The vehicles were normally crewed by four, but these had only a driver and gunner manning a big fifty-caliber out back. Brent rode shotgun in one truck, Lakota in the other.

  While en route to Sandhurst, Dennison told Brent that the helicopter transports she’d secured were now unavailable, so they were forced to take the Huskies all the way down to Sandhurst, at least a two-hour drive through rolling countryside.

  He reminded Dennison of the crash landing and lack
of satellite and helicopter support, that these were circumstances beyond his control and that the time delay might result in loss of the target.

  “I understand that, Captain. But you have your orders. And your mission. Hammer out.”

  She didn’t want to hear it. And if the op went south again, he would take the fall. She’d already gone to bat for him and couldn’t do any more.

  So now he could play it two ways: be the stressed-out maniac barking at his people ... or remain cool, calm, and collected, a man already resigned to his fate who stared into the sun as it was about to explode and said, “No problem, people. Let’s get to work.”

  He leaned over to the driver. “We need to be there yesterday.”

  “Right. Tell your folks out back to hang on. There’s nothing I like more than breaking the speed limit!”

  Brent smiled. “You and me both! Go for it!” He then passed word back to the others as the Husky leapt forward with a roar and subsequent vibration working up through the reinforced floor.

  After a burst of static, George Voeckler appeared in Brent’s HUD: “Ghost Lead, this is Romulus, over.”

  “Go ahead, Romulus.”

  “We should be at the target coordinates in about thirty minutes. Suggest we move in immediately and try to secure the target, over.”

  The word Negative was about to escape Brent’s lips, and he was certain that George expected him to deny the request and order him to set up an observation post and wait for them.

  But it was all about timing, not ego, and the Russian attack had no doubt alerted the Snow Maiden. She was a fool if she wasn’t already on the move, and they needed to check out the leads quickly and efficiently.

  “Romulus, I want you guys all over that location. You get in there and try to take her alive. But if not, you know what to do. No delays.”

  George appeared a little flabbergasted, his face shimmering a bit in the HUD, but then his voice came steadily. “Roger that, Captain.”

  “And keep the channel open. I want full access to your cameras.”

  “Will do. Romulus out.”

  As he settled deeper into the seat, Brent wondered if they hadn’t given him the Snow Maiden job as a way to ditch a troublemaker. They were always two steps behind her, and the more he failed, the easier it was for them to bust him down and out.

  Now he was just being paranoid, and he wasn’t the biggest troublemaker in the group. They’d given him the job because they knew he wouldn’t play it by the book. Never did.

  He got back on the Cross-Com, called Dennison, and asked to speak directly to Warda if he could. He waited. Five minutes later he had the woman on the line. His focus was on the vehicles owned by her brother’s staff. She didn’t know tag numbers but had a general idea of style and color. He asked Dennison to relay these details to the local authorities. She said she was right on it.

  Suddenly, a fist was rapping on the cab’s back window. It was Daugherty, looking wide-eyed and pointing above them.

  Brent thrust his head out the open side window as two helicopters swept overhead, one of them decidedly Russian, the other an AH-80 Blackfoot American gunship firing on the Russian bird, the rounds and tracers missing as the Russian swept down toward the field.

  And then more rotors drew closer, and with an immediate roar one more Russian bird appeared, a gunship itself, and fired on the American chopper, all of it happening not more than five hundred meters ahead, the first Russian helicopter descending to less than a hundred meters above the road. It was, in a word, surreal to see Russian Federation military aircraft flying over the U.K. and being engaged by Americans. Even their driver remarked on the audacity of it all. Obviously, JSF forces had been called in to assist, but now it seemed that the lone American bird could use some help.

  “Can you tell your gunners to put some fire up there to help him out?”

  “Negative!”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because—you dumb Yank—that’ll draw fire on us! And because I’d have to call for authorization.”

  “Authorization? We’re not sitting here to watch that pilot die! You get some fire on those enemy birds!”

  “No, I won’t! The Russians are his problem, not ours. And you’ve got a mission, right?”

  Brent gritted his teeth. A fellow combatant needed him. “Ghost Team, this is Ghost Lead. Relieve those gunners of duty, at gunpoint if necessary. Heston? Daugherty? I want you on those fifties. Lay down some fire on those Russian birds right now!”

  “Captain, you’ll get us killed!” hollered the driver.

  Brent glared at him. “If I do, I’ll make sure you die first.”

  ELEVEN

  Ghost Recon Team

  En Route to Sandhurst

  ��Captain, don’t let them fire,” said Lakota from the other Husky. “Check it out. We’re rolling up on another neighborhood. Collateral damage.”

  Brent couldn’t deny the fact that civilians could be injured or killed should one of those choppers go down into the homes. Of course, the Russians didn’t care if the American gunship crashed into a residential neighborhood; they just wanted that aircraft out of the sky.

  And it was true that firing on them would no doubt draw a response. Those Russian choppers, identified in Brent’s HUD as KA-65 Howlers, noted as being one of the most armed and armored helicopters in existence, could tear their little trucks to shreds in all of ten seconds. And it was Brent’s job to reach Sandhurst.

  He cursed and hollered into his boom mike: “All right, stay on the guns but hold fire for now. Be ready in case they turn on us.”

  “Thanks, Captain.”

  “Now that’s the sane choice,” said the driver.

  “Shut up, Brit. That pilot’s going to die. We’ll honor him with our silence. And is that as fast as you can go?”

  The driver swore under his breath and accelerated even as in the far distance, Brent watched the American gunship get double-teamed by the two Russian helicopters, while yet another Russian chopper, a troop transport, followed behind. A missile flew, and within a breath the American bird vanished inside an orb of white light. Below that orb, in an eerie slow motion, debris appeared and began tumbling down toward the rooftops of residential homes. The two choppers broke formation and wheeled back around to the north, while the third troop transport continued southward, ahead of them.

  The driver got on his radio and called in his report, while Brent was interrupted by word from George Voeckler: They were just a couple of minutes away from the target location.

  Brent issued a voice command to his Cross-Com, bringing up camera images from both George and Thomas Voeckler in separate windows of the HUD. He took a deep breath and waited as their car raced up a narrow suburban street.

  “Looks like a police checkpoint,” said Chopra, his mouth going cotton as he eased on the brakes.

  The barricade lay about two blocks ahead as they were passing through the rural village of Flexford, according to the car’s GPS. The Snow Maiden had ordered him to keep off the main highways, and this was the first barrier they’d come across. It was comprised of two police “smart” cars parked at forty-five-degree angles on either side of fluorescent red cones spanning the road.

  The roadblock appeared about as dangerous and imposing as a little old man armed with a water pistol, and Chopra doubted it would pose much trouble to the woman in his backseat.

  “All right, calm down,” said the Snow Maiden. “Drive right up and speak to them.”

  “What do I tell them?” asked Chopra.

  “The truth.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said the truth.”

  He wasn’t sure what this crazy woman had in mind, but he decided he would do just that.

  As he drew closer, he saw two bobbies armed only with short, wooden truncheons. The Snow Maiden, he suspected, could dispatch both of them with barely an effort.

  “Chopra, don’t do anything stupid,” said Hussein. “Just hand over y
our identity and tell them we’re going to Dover. The truth. Just like she said.”

  He looked back at the Snow Maiden, who nodded.

  With a deep breath he brought the car to a stop before the cones and tapped the button to lower his window. One bobby came up to him as the other went around the other side of the car. They were both middle-aged men, a little thick around the center, and setting up this roadblock was probably the most exciting thing that had happened to them in weeks.

  “Good morning, sir. Your identification, please?”

  Chopra had already withdrawn his wallet and was about to hand over his ID when a thump made him flinch. The bobby fell back, away from the car.

  She’d shot him right over Chopra’s shoulder.

  Before he hit the ground, the Snow Maiden wrenched open her door and ran around the other side, toward the second bobby, who’d ducked at the sight of seeing his partner drop.

  The Snow Maiden’s gun went off twice more. She reentered the car and slammed the door. “Go. There’ll be another car waiting for us in Chilworth.”

  Chopra threw the car in gear and floored it, crashing through the cones and leaving the bodies of the two men behind. He glanced at them in the rearview mirror, then raised his voice. “You see, Hussein? You see who you’re dealing with? A thug. A murderer. Nothing more. And when she’s done with us, we’ll be shot like dogs, just like them.”

  “You didn’t have to kill them,” Hussein told the Snow Maiden.

  “No, I didn’t. I wanted to.”

  “You really are just a killer.”

  She gave a big snort. “And it’s all for my own entertainment pleasure—not yours.”

  Brent didn’t realize that he was clutching the seat with both hands until a sudden bump broke his grip. George and Thomas had just left their cars and were charging up on the house, and he was watching it all in his HUD, the images piped in from the trident goggles worn by each Splinter Cell. The two spies found the body of a man lying at the far end of the driveway, near the side door. At that point, they split up, with George taking the side entrance and Thomas falling back to hold off in the yard, in case anyone tried to bolt as George entered.