Hunting Season: A Rhys Adler Thriller

by Alex Carlson

  Rhys looked over the edge and saw two men fighting to hold on. He leveled the AK-9 and let it rip. Bullets flew off the face and splintered the rock, which sprayed the men clinging for their lives.

  But Rhys couldn’t get an angle on them. Once the explosion’s echo faded and the cascade of rocks finished their surrender to gravity, Rhys heard the two men struggling to hold onto the wet cliff. They shouted loudly back and forth, probably unable to hear each other after the deafening blast.

  Rhys didn’t waste his shots. He moved to his left and peered carefully over the edge. He saw the two men clinging to the rock. They looked intense, angry. They didn’t look scared. Rhys was at least comforted by the fact that there was no way they could threaten him.

  He had every advantage but no way to use his position because he couldn’t get an angle. They wouldn’t climb up over the lip and meet certain death at his hands. They’d lower themselves to the level ground and scamper away. He couldn’t let that happen.

  He scurried back to his original position and continued moving past it to find an angle from the side.

  Then he heard a thud. It wasn’t loud and it wasn’t mechanical or explosive or electrical. It was just a thud, like the sound of a baseball landing on soft ground. Or a piece of wood, a shoe, or a dead bird hitting the dirt after being shot. Or—

  Grenade!

  Rhys dove from the spot and landed in a depression just as it exploded. A searing pain screamed from his leg as a piece of shrapnel grazed the side of his thigh.

  He stayed low and covered his head as another grenade followed its parabola to the ledge where Rhys had originally been. It exploded and Rhys felt shrapnel whiz by him. A piece dug into the heel of his boot and sent a jolt up through his body.

  He lay still. The two men below were quiet, probably practicing motionless. They were listening, knowing from experience that grenades, if they didn’t kill, often wounded, and a wounded man is a loud man.

  Rhys bit his lip and fought through the burning in his leg. He was a good ten yards from where he expected them to climb over the lip of rock and he slowly and silently turned his body into a good shooting position, aiming his Glock at the spot where they would appear.

  In the shadowless light he saw a hand, then an arm, and finally a head extend over the top of the rock. The Russian stopped halfway over the edge and carefully looked for a body.

  Rhys shot him in the jaw. The man’s head snapped back and his body followed as his brain was no longer able to dictate commands to his muscles. He tumbled down the steep pile of rocks, bouncing awkwardly as his spine snapped and his body twisted in impossible contortions.

  Rhys rose, limped quickly to the edge, and looked over it. The third Russian looked up at him from just a few feet down. He looked more pissed off than scared. Adler shot him twice in the head and his body collapsed, slid down, but in one of those random turns of physics, it didn’t fall. His pack had somehow gotten hung up on a jagged protruding rock and his body just hung there.

  Rhys took a deep breath and then enjoyed the exhale. It was proof that he was still alive. Then the pain from his thigh drove the point home. Fuck that hurts. He walked around a bit and realized that moving didn’t hurt any more than standing still. Nothing was broken, there was no need to keep weight off it. In fact, movement provided a welcome distraction.

  He undid his pants and pulled them down to his knees. He looked at the wound. A shiny four-inch streak ran down his leg, blood and puss oozed out but not enough to flow. He had been lucky. Still, the shrapnel had hit exactly between the pants’ built in hip pad and kneepad. Guess he hadn’t been that lucky.

  He pulled up his pants, picked up the discarded AK-9, and walked far enough from the ledge that he was able to disassociate from the events.

  It was quiet, the only sound was that of the breeze passing through distant trees. He felt alone.

  Utterly alone.

  C

  HAPTER NINETEEN

  MANNY WAITED IN tufts of wild grass just beyond a lip of earth that hid his body from view. He knew RG 405 had men who had trained long and hard behind a scope, so he ensured he was hidden and maintained total stillness. After his pair of shots, he had moved a kilometer or so east and gone to ground. From his new vantage point, he’d see if—when, hopefully—the Russians took the alternative eastern route that would add hours to their trek. Then he and Rhys would hustle through the pass, set up again, and wait for them to again to walk into another trap. They’d take a few more pops at them and then decide what to do next.

  He scanned down the mountain through his scope, moving the lens deliberately, sliding the reticle over open spaces and clusters of pines, which the Russians would probably avoid, and slowing once he got to the the thicker wooded areas. He painstakingly scanned through the trees for any movement at all. They wouldn’t go too low, below the hump of the mountain, because that would really add time to their trip. He had the area covered. He’d see them.

  He had honed his scanning skills at Camp Pendleton’s Scout Sniper Basic Course. During an exercise during Phase 1, he’d been assigned a grid and was tasked with finding twenty objects, absurd things—a bird, jacket, bottle, shoe—in a prescribed period of time. He passed, finding all but a hat; he had been looking for a baseball cap while he should’ve been looking for a beret. Today, he had no time limit and he couldn’t find shit. His focus burned through the brush and penetrated deep into the woods. He knew RG 405 would pass through them. But he saw nothing and started to have doubts. They were good. Damn good, trained in stealth and stalking themselves.

  He had heard the fight—explosions, automatic fire—a couple of clicks away. That was Rhys, Manny knew, though he had no idea what was happening. He was encouraged, at least, that the last thing he heard was a hand gun, a Glock, which he knew Rhys was carrying. He hoped those last shots were Adler’s. Nine times out of ten, he who shoots last wins. And if Rhys didn’t make it back? Well, then he’d be sitting here all by his lonesome and he wouldn’t have a chance.

  Manny couldn’t figure Rhys out. The guy was introverted, reserved, never terribly friendly, though he could be exceedingly polite. He had no friends that Manny knew of. Just didn’t seem to need them. Maybe he was too wary of them. Doing what Rhys did will do that to people. And Berlin, where Rhys lived, undoubtedly had something to do with it. Rhys had grown up in woods and mountains, riding dirt bikes and discovering nature’s secrets. Berlin was all concrete and graffiti and flash and attitude. Transitioning from the sticks to the metropole must have been jarring. Regardless, Rhys had developed a certain mistrust for people. Manny wasn’t going to judge him. He had no idea what Rhys had been through. He just thought it odd the way Rhys detected threats where none existed and looked too carefully at strangers, as though they were a threat.

  The guy was somehow scarred.

  And why did Rhys now seem so different, so alive and animated? The threats now were real and Rhys reacted naturally, almost like he was prepared for them. Manny had just one answer: Rhys was a natural. If there was one person who should have joined the USMC, it was Rhys Adler. He would have been Command Sergeant Major before his career was over—if he weren’t killed somewhere along the way first.

  “Hold your fire, Marine. It’s me.”

  Where had he come from? Manny’s observational skills were damn good, but Adler just snuck up on him as though he had been wearing Bilbo’s ring.

  “All’s clear here, sir. Haven’t seen a damn thing.”

  “You call me “sir” again and I’ll shoot you myself.”

  Manny had no idea why he’d called him “sir.” It just came out.

  “And I can tell you why you haven’t seen ‘em.”

  Rhys had come back east across the original field where he and Manny had taken out the Spetsnaz point group.

  “There were tracks, definitely made since the rain had stopped. Same treads as I saw down where they had left the airfield. The one’s they sent to the west were a diversion or w
ere sent to cover the advance. The rest didn’t head east as we had hoped. They continued straight on.”

  “Shit. That means they’re ahead of us.”

  “And probably moving damn fast.” Rhys was squatting. Manny saw that he was in pain and only then noticed the tear in his pants.”

  “You alright?”

  “I’m fine,” Rhys said. Manny could see that he wasn’t. “Listen,” Rhys continued, “I reckon it’ll take ’em three hours to get to the safe house if we don’t get in their way. Even if we chase ’em down, we’ll still always be behind them. No way to slow ’em down from behind.”

  “We have to try,” said Manny.

  “Yeah, we do. But we gotta get in front of them.”

  “How the hell are we gonna do that?”

  Rhys already had the answer. He probably came to it as soon as he saw RG 405’s tracks heading straight up the path. Learn from him, Lucinda had told Manny, he’s always thinking, usually a step ahead of everyone else. It keeps him alive.

  “I’m glad you’re a younger man than I am,” Rhys finally said. “And I hope you’re not too tired, ’cause what you’ve done so far is just a warm up.”

  C

  HAPTER TWENTY

  THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR in Berlin, Victor Petrov, shuffled his schedule and arrived at the American embassy as quickly as could be arranged. McClellum had forcefully, but politely, communicated the urgency. It was a beautiful spring day in Berlin, warm and dry, the flowers in Pariser Platz added color to the otherwise rather drab Brandenburg Gate. Petrov walked, with a two-man security team in tow, from the Russian embassy located a short stretch down Unter den Linden. The few clouds in the deep blue sky were tight balls of cotton, moving at a glacial pace, never casting shadows on Petrov’s sweeping forehead.

  A smartly dressed embassy aide met Petrov at the door, ushered him around the standard security procedure, and escorted him to the third floor, where Ambassador McClellum and Sophia Venegas waited in McClellum’s office.

  “Dmitri,” McClellum said as he stood to shake hands, “good to see you again.”

  “Yes, Terry, it has been too long.”

  Sophia Venegas watched the nauseating insincerities. The two ambassadors had a complex relationship. Petrov had gotten McClellum embroiled in a nefarious situation months earlier, and while McClellum’s stature seemed to grow in the estimation of the State Department, Petrov, normally full of confidence, came to the American embassy with great trepidation. Venegas owned him just as she owned McClellum.

  “Okay, pleasantries are over,” Venegas said. “Ambassador, if you will excuse us.”

  McClellum looked confused. “But this is my office.”

  “Yes, it is. And Ambassador Petrov and I need to speak in private. Please close the door on your way out.”

  Sophia communicated a look that McClellum had grown accustomed to and he knew not to push it. He covered up his embarrassment with sincere annoyance.

  “Very well,” he said. “Call me if you need me. I’ll be...somewhere.”

  Once they had sat down—with Venegas behind the ambassador’s desk—Petrov broke the ice.

  “I see you still have him in his place.” Petrov knew what Venegas had on McClellum. He enjoyed the moment.

  “He can be useful,” she said. “As can you.”

  Petrov looked at her. He had to have known something was coming.

  “Ambassador, we have a situation down in Austria. Without giving details, an American property is being threatened by a Russian Spetsnaz unit. Time is extremely short. I need you to stop it.”

  Petrov considered the ramifications of what Venegas had said. “I suspect you do not have the correct information, and I assure you that I know nothing about it.”

  “I don’t doubt that you know nothing. There’s no reason why you would have been informed. Nonetheless, the situation is both dire and urgent. You must have it called off.”

  “Even if I could—”

  “Ambassador, do not underestimate the importance of this to the American government and, I might add, to me personally.” She hadn’t raised her voice as much as she had lowered it an octave. Her voice was clear, strong, forceful. She remained calm. “If you do not make the call, I will have no choice but to release information regarding the incident you orchestrated over the winter. Yes, it is blackmail. You knew this day was coming. We are now calling in the chit.”

  Petrov knew that if Venegas made good on her threat, then the very least of his concerns would be being recalled from Berlin. His life, as he knew it, would be over. The Kremlin did not tolerate public humiliation.

  “Ms. Venegas, please consider what you have told me. You say a Spetsnaz team is operating in Austria. I can assure you that if that is indeed the case, then something extremely significant is going on, so significant, in fact, that Moscow would surely sacrifice me and tolerate the embarrassment my actions caused to ensure its success. Dealing with my previous activities would be far easier than the consequences of not following through with whatever is now transpiring. I have no idea what that could be, but Moscow must have considered that the action risked inciting an international incident and that it was nonetheless worth the risk.”

  Sophia knew he was right. Moscow had priorities, and preventing a strong, unifying leader from coming to power in Ukraine was higher on their list than dealing with the fallout from what they would surely claim was a rogue ambassador.

  Perhaps it was too late anyway. Still, she needed Petrov to be involved. What would Lucinda want? Lucinda would want to nail the bastards who made this possible, even if it couldn’t be stopped. It would be worth handing over the chit on Petrov.

  “I suspect you might be right, Mr. Ambassador. In which case, I have an alternative proposition for you: find out how our assets in Austria were compromised and we will stay silent about your recent activities.”

  Now it was Petrov’s turn to consider. She was asking him to sell out a Russian source, a mole, someone Moscow had undoubtedly groomed for years, possibly for decades. Petrov had connections and could probably find out the information. But could he possibly do that to his motherland?

  “Tell me what I need to know and I’ll get the answer for you.”

  He liked Berlin and would hate to leave it.

  C

  HAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  RHYS’ MOTORCYCLE STOOD where they had left it, leaning on its side stand. The enlarged stand plate he bought from Touratech prevented the weight of the bike from pushing the side stand through the wet ground and causing the whole bike to topple over. His helmet hung from the right side of handlebars. He put it on. The padding was soaked through and rain water dripped down his neck when he squeezed his head in. A trickle of water ran under his collar, causing a shiver to run down his spine. An inauspicious start.

  Rhys’ plan was to split up. He had run back to his motorcycle, which took half the time it took the two of them to cover the distance earlier because he was more or less running downhill. He’d ride down the mountain road, somehow navigate the mudslide on his own, and then turn left on an access road he remembered from the map. It was a mere logging road, but it was the only way he’d be able to get ahead of the Russians. If he could make it up that—a big if—then he’d be able to move along the easternmost string of mountains, the end of which being the location of the CIA safe house nestled high up at 1,800 meters. He had ignored the option earlier because he doubted his ability to make it up the logging road. Now he had no choice. If he made it, he’d be faster going the long way around on his motorcycle than RG 405 taking the shorter route on foot.

  Manny, meanwhile, would hightail it on foot, follow the Russians through the pass, and somehow get ahead of them. That somehow was the flaw in their plan. They had no idea how he was going to get ahead of them. But he was young, fit, and determined, full of certainty that he could do it. If he couldn’t get ahead of them, then they’d go to Plan B: they’d pin ’em, with Rhys shooting from the front, Manny from behin
d. It wasn’t great, but their options were limited.

  Rhys attached the AK-9 to the top of one the panniers with a bungee cord. His jacket was still weighed down by the tools of war. He kicked his leg over the saddle, started the bike up, and revved through a practiced elephant turn, sending stones and mud flying as his tires gained traction and the bike sped off along the first twists down the road.

  He’d have to fly. He remembered the start of the access road to be located just on the other side of the mudslide, which he’d now have to navigate alone. If he got stuck this time, he wouldn’t be able to drag the bike out by himself.

  He could ride faster now that he was alone. Riding two-up changed the bike’s balance and had forced him to react to its unfamiliar movements, to correct them constantly in order keep it upright. Now alone, he was one with the bike, able to steer it intuitively. He knew what the bike was capable of and what he could do as a rider. He’d learned to ride on dirt roads like this before he learned how to ride on pavement.

  Despite its weight—over 500 pounds loaded as it was—a F800GSA was surprisingly nimble, carrying its weight low so it maintained a low center of gravity. Rhys told the bike where to go and there it went. He pushed it to its limit.

  MANNY HERNANDEZ HAD learned the hard way that sniping was a lot more than aiming and squeezing the trigger. At Camp Pendleton, target practice was easy. High pressure, to be sure, but easy in the sense that it didn’t take a lot out of your body. Any exhaustion was due to the stress: hit the shots or pack your bags. The other part of the Scout Sniper Basic Course was the conditioning necessary to approach and stalk, to set up the shot. You had to move quickly, but above all you had to move stealthily.