Hunted: A Jason King Thriller (Jason King Series Book 6) Read online

‘Relax, man,’ Slater said. ‘I don’t mean any harm.’

  ‘You’re not the one making me nervous,’ Derek muttered.

  The sharp report of gunfire echoed down from the top deck. It came from several places at once — signifying a makeshift war zone atop the supercarrier.

  That’s a serious firefight, Slater thought.

  Finally, Derek succeeded with the lock. He sprang the cell door open and ushered Slater through.

  Slater stepped through the doorway, feeling invigorated. He had known nothing but that claustrophobic prison for the last seven days straight, with nothing to do but exercise and ponder what was to come. Now he was free — but the circumstances left much to be desired.

  He offered a hand to Derek, who shook it.

  ‘You Navy?’ the man said.

  Slater paused. ‘It’s hard to explain…’

  The supercarrier rocked a third time, reverberations spiralling down through its reinforced frame. Both men grimaced.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Derek said. ‘Need all the help I can get…’

  ‘Ever been in combat?’ Slater said.

  ‘Nah, man,’ Derek muttered. ‘Been stationed on this thing for the last seven months and—’

  Blood fountained from the side of the man’s skull, accompanied by the grisly staccato of automatic weapon fire. His head jerked to the side — carried by the punching force of a high-calibre bullet — and he was swept off his feet by the direct hit.

  Dead on impact.

  Slater felt unbridled rage, but he was already on the move by the time he heard the sound of the gunshots.

  He understood that Derek’s death meant that whoever had happened upon their position would be sweeping their barrel from left to right, lighting up the hallway with a barrage of ammunition. He let his legs go limp, dropping to the steel floor as fast as gravity would allow. On the way down he snatched Derek’s M4 out of thin air and swung the barrel in a tight arc, working his finger inside the trigger guard in an instant.

  It would come down to a matter of milliseconds.

  Just as it always did, seemingly.

  He fired a three-round burst before the sight of the masked man registered in his vision. The guy stood dead-centre in the middle of the hallway, legs spread, intent on succeeding with his single uninterrupted burst of rifle fire.

  Idiot.

  The first two of Slater’s shots missed, but the third ruptured the soft tissue in the guy’s throat. Blood arced and the rest of the rounds went wide, carried into the ceiling by all the man’s limbs slackening at once.

  Slater felt air wash over him from above — bullets had passed inches over his right shoulder. He’d hit the floor on his left shoulder and skidded a foot, narrowly avoiding Derek’s corpse.

  When he composed himself and let out the breath that had caught in his throat, the corridor contained two dead men.

  His ears rang from the unsuppressed gunfire. Before he even had time to comprehend the events that had unfolded, hurried movement sounded from the hallways beyond the dead assailant.

  More, Slater thought.

  His conscious brain had flicked off upon the arrival of combat, giving way to instinct and a decade of violent experience. As he heard the footsteps he rolled to his feet and sprinted directly at the source of the noise. He leapfrogged the dead mercenary and shoulder-charged into the dead space connecting to another hallway.

  The approaching party hadn’t been expecting it.

  There were three of them. All of them were dressed identically, wearing faded combat fatigues lacking insignia of any kind. Their features were masked by combat balaclavas. Their eyes were hard and focused.

  Experienced combatants.

  But not like me.

  Slater took the first man off his feet with the crash-tackle, ramming the point of his shoulder into the guy’s solar plexus. The guy sprawled back into the man behind him, disorienting both of them.

  Slater spun to the third and blew his head apart with four consecutive shots from the M4.

  Such sudden confrontation had put the group on the back foot. The other two were in the process of swinging their weapons around to aim at Slater. By then, he had burst into fluid motion, acting reflexively.

  Instead of spending time taking aim with his outstretched M4, he sliced the thin barrel in a scything arc towards the nearest man. The barrel sunk into the guy’s eye socket, causing him to omit a blood-curling scream.

  Slater hauled the disoriented mercenary aside and smashed a well-placed elbow into the jaw of the man behind him. He could have thrown a sweeping right hook from further back to minimise risk, but that added the possibility of breaking the delicate bones in his hand unnecessarily.

  An elbow could deal a world of damage regardless.

  There was a sharp crack and the man’s legs gave out. As soon as Slater recognised that the pair were incapacitated, he clinically delivered a two-round burst into each guy’s forehead.

  The trio of reinforcements, mowed down in the space of five seconds.

  Slater didn’t give it a second thought. He felt another lightning strike of rage course through him as he remembered Derek — shot down in cold blood, mid-sentecnce. He snatched up a sleek black shotgun that one of the mercenaries had dropped in their death throes, stepped over the three corpses and pressed further into the sub-levels of the supercarrier. Derek’s M4 rested in his right hand and his left was wrapped around the mercenary’s shotgun — a Saiga-12 with a box magazine, still fully loaded.

  He didn’t know where he was headed. He felt a vein on the side of his forehead throbbing. The anger consumed him every now and then — this was one of those occasions. He recalled a yacht in Corsica that had been used to transport sex slaves into the Middle East, and the rampage that King had seen him carry out onboard.

  This felt like another one of those occasions.

  He ran into no-one. The endless corridors were deserted. Countless reverberations shook the walls and the floor, sending him stumbling every few seconds. The gunfire above deck had reached a crescendo.

  The military personnel on this ship were at war.

  Right now, his mind was fixed on a single task — finding Jason King.

  He heard something in an adjoining hallway, barely perceptible to his ears, like a slight tremor amidst the muffled din of the firefight. He ducked into the hallway, rifle raised. Any flicker of hostile intention would be met with an overwhelming response. That was his style, and it had worked for him so far.

  What he found caused him to freeze.

  It was another brig, with a row of cells lined up along the right-hand wall of the empty corridor. The sound came from the far cell — heavy breathing. Slater moved methodically down the hallway, scanning each space for any sign of movement.

  All were empty — except for the last.

  He paused by the steel bars and stared at the woman sitting on the bed frame.

  ‘Long time no see, Isla,’ he said.

  She was still dressed in the same military fatigues that she had favoured so heavily when on the job. He’d grown used to her authoritative decisions in his ear on missions — often made out of instinct. She’d been an excellent commander during his time in Black Force.

  Now, she looked like hell.

  He knew little about King’s mission in the Russian Far East, but Isla must have been intercepted by Ramsay — or surrendered herself when she realised the gravity of what she had done.

  Whatever the case, here she was.

  And it was clear that she had been mistreated during her time onboard the supercarrier.

  Her clothes were dirty and damp. It seemed like the life had been sucked out of her by the tumultuous times. Her cheeks were hollow and pale. Heavy bags rested underneath both eyes. She still had her hair tied back in the familiar ponytail, but it only served to expose how emancipated she looked. Slater knew she was at least ten years older than he and King, and now she looked every bit of her age.

  ‘Slater,
’ she said curtly.

  ‘What the hell…? Have they been feeding you?’

  ‘Not as much as I’d like.’

  Her eyes narrowed — she seemed to be wincing from something.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Slater said.

  ‘He kicked me in my rib when he threw me in here. Think he was mad that I almost started a world war.’

  ‘Ramsay?’

  She nodded.

  Slater saw flaming red.

  ‘No,’ Isla said, noticing the glint in his eyes. ‘You lay a finger on an official and you know the consequences. Don’t give them a reason to come after you.’

  ‘I’m getting you out of here,’ he said.

  ‘What’s happening up there?’

  ‘I’m just as much in the dark as you are. But they’re here for me and King.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  He held up the Saiga-12 in his left hand, showing Isla. ‘Russian arms. It’s them.’

  ‘Military?’

  ‘No. A small private force.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Total war isn’t guaranteed just yet.’

  ‘Let’s just focus on getting off this ship. Stand back.’

  He shoved the barrel of the Saiga-12 against the lock on her cell door and fired twice, blasting the internal mechanics to shreds. He turned away from the small detonation, shielding his eyes from any potential ricochet.

  Satisfied by the twin shots, he gripped one of the steel bars and heaved the door outward. It jammed against a jagged piece of steel left over from the shotgun blasts, but with a grunt of exertion and a powerful heave he forced it open.

  Isla stepped through. Up close, Slater noticed the small details of her face — especially the gaunt condition and the protrusion of her cheekbones.

  ‘You need a good meal,’ he muttered.

  ‘I sure fucking do.’

  Slater handed her the Saiga-12 and she slipped a finger inside the trigger guard.

  ‘Been in combat before?’ Slater said.

  He’d asked the same question to Derek — and it surprised him when he realised he didn’t know if Isla had. During his time as a Black Force operative, they’d shared no personal details or anecdotes with one another. It was simply part of the job not to delve into anything other than the task at hand. They operated in a highly-dangerous business and every waking moment was spent on what lay ahead.

  She nodded. ‘I’m ex-Army. I’ve had my fair share of experience. Wouldn’t have got this job otherwise.’

  ‘I’d say you no longer have the job.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ she said, her tone full of sarcasm.

  He smirked, then his face hardened to stone. ‘Ready? It’s going to be crazy up there.’

  ‘Where’s King?’ she muttered.

  Slater grimaced. ‘I have no idea. We were all kept apart. I’d say there’s another brig somewhere in here…’

  ‘He can take care of himself. I’ve seen enough of his work.’

  Slater stared down the empty corridor, at a tunnel that shrank into nothingness as it snaked its way around the bowels of the supercarrier. A horrendous groan emanated all around them — the anthem of structural weaknesses, presenting themselves all at once. The walls vibrated hard, rocked by a blast that seemed to come from the side of the warship.

  ‘I hope he can,’ Slater muttered under his breath, and they set off in the direction of the skirmish on deck.

  11

  As Sergei made it to the base of the control tower and located a stairwell descending into the warship, he turned to see a swarm of his men rappelling onto the runway from the RHIBs. He noted their presence, then charged down the stairs into darkness, suppressed Vikhr rifle at the ready.

  His mind dissipated into a rapid chain of reflexive decisions. He took in the sights ahead in the blink of an eye, assessing and calculating his steps without paying much attention to them.

  He was ready to kill.

  The first flash of human movement that came into his peripheral vision sent a spark of instinct through his brain.

  He dropped to one knee and pivoted, lining up the barrel with the target area. He was the first of his force onboard the warship, which meant he treated every shred of movement as a hostile intention. Two United States Navy soldiers came careering out of the doorway a second after he took a knee, swinging their assault rifles in ungainly fashion as they sprinted for top deck.

  Sergei met the pair’s eyes for a split second before he fired. They were both white, probably in their early twenties, more than likely full of energy and potential — hoping that their futures in the U.S. Armed Forces would be bright and full of acclaim.

  Not anymore.

  He killed them simultaneously, working the SR-3 Vikhr from left to right in a tight arc. The subsonic rounds punched out of the barrel, suppressed by the seven-inch silencer fixed to it. The two soldiers didn’t stand a chance. They had youth and inexperience on their side, whereas Sergei had a lifetime of cruelty to draw from. He didn’t hesitate to kill them. They were a barrier between himself and the completion of his task, and he treated it as such while he watched their bodies cascade to the floor.

  He pressed on.

  The aircraft carrier was enormous, and as a result its resources were spread across the complex network of corridors. He failed to come across any more opposition, but at no point did he drop his guard.

  Just as he sensed himself getting closer to the section of the warship reserved for detaining prisoners, he rounded a corner and almost collided with an older man in dark unofficial military gear.

  For a split second, he thought it might be one of his own. The uniform threw him off — he spent a brief moment scanning the man’s features to ensure he wasn’t an ally.

  The guy had thick black hair slicked back off his forehead and stark blue eyes. He seemed cold and detached, like he was out of place on board the supercarrier. Sergei imagined he had something to do with the American who had snuck into Russia uninvited.

  A handler, perhaps.

  The man swung a fist but Sergei ducked under it, powering into close-range. He fumbled with his weapon, awkwardly losing his grip on the Vikhr, but he was close enough for it not to matter.

  Sergei had received his black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu almost five years ago. The manoeuvres were ingrained into him, so instinctual and free-flowing that it seemed almost effortless to dominate a foe. He took the man down with a simple leg sweep and sliced into full mount, a position that pinned the guy to the cold floor of the hallway by straddling his stomach. When the man instinctually rolled over to try and escape — known as “giving up the back” — Sergei slipped a meaty arm underneath the man’s chin and tightened it around his throat like a boa constrictor.

  ‘What is your name?’ he said in stunted English, flattening the man out on his stomach.

  ‘Ramsay,’ the guy muttered, gasping as the pressure on his carotid artery turned unbearable. Veins protruded from his forehead and his entire face began to turn a deep shade of red.

  ‘Where is your prisoner, Ramsay?’

  ‘W-who?’

  ‘The American who came to Russia. I know he is here.’

  Ramsay retched, almost vomiting from the tightness of the rear-naked choke. Sergei kept just enough pressure on his throat to keep him conscious and breathing. ‘Down … down this passage. I’m keeping him in a cell. Do what you want with him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sergei said.

  All at once, he squeezed with every ounce of pressure in his forearms. The result was devastating. Ramsay instantly turned purple, trying to gag but unable to make a sound. It would be seconds until he was unconscious, and then seconds after that he would be dead. Sergei clenched his teeth and focused on sapping the life out of the man.

  Then a cacophony of voices and footsteps tore down the corridor behind him. Male voices, hurrying toward his position.

  More soldiers.


  Sergei swore and sprung off the man, who had lapsed into a semi-conscious state. As he released his hold on the man’s throat, his head dropped onto the steel floor and lay still, knocking him out if the choke already hadn’t. He wasn’t dead, but it didn’t matter. That was not the reason for Sergei’s presence on the warship — truth was he enjoyed the thrill of taking another man’s life in such dominating fashion, and hadn’t passed up the opportunity to do so.

  Now he snatched up the Vikhr rifle and powered down the hallway.

  The voices behind him grew louder, escalating in volume until he was sure they had entered the same corridor. He ducked reflexively, but no shots came. Maybe they were shocked by the sight of their commander lying helpless on the cold floor; maybe they were hesitant to fire on a fleeing silhouette who had yet to be properly identified.

  Regardless, the outcome was the same.

  Sergei lived to see another day.

  He dropped his head to minimise the target area available to the soldiers, and dove into an adjacent corridor. Only now he realised how vague Ramsay’s information had been. If he really wanted to, he could turn around and gun down the soldiers that had happened upon his location. He could force the exact details out of Ramsay until he knew the space occupied by the American down to the square inch.

  But the operation was volatile, and time was sparse.

  Even now, the walls rattled violently as the three Mi-28 attack helicopters still in the air lay down their arsenal on the warship.

  He had willingly accepted the sensitivity of the mission. There was a fair chance that important structural connections would be devastated by the attack and the supercarrier would go down while he was still inside it.

  He would do everything to ensure that would not be the case.

  He sprinted down empty hallways, careering through doorways when he heard the sounds of approaching footsteps. A couple of minutes later, he heard the muffled staccato of gunfire within the walls of the ship. A firefight, taking place somewhere close-by.

  His men had entered the sub-levels.

  It couldn’t have been more than three minutes since he entered the bowels of the supercarrier — however, he’d expected the American to be dead by now. Despite his concentrated mental state, nerves popped up. A particularly vicious blast rocked the floor underneath him, making him stumble and bounce shoulder-first off the hard metal wall.