“I think hunting is cruel,” Caroline said.
King rolled his eyes. There was no stopping her sometimes. And then he remembered that was why he had fallen for her in the first place.
The other man patted his assault rifle. “Not really,” he said. “I can make it quite painless.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Any fool can pull a trigger.”
The man went to say something, but the other man tapped him across the chest with his forearm. “Are you staying at the hotel?”
King stared at the man for a long time. He could see both men started to feel uneasy. He smiled thinly and said, “Where else would we be staying?”
The man shrugged. “We are going there,” he said. “To shelter before the real storm hits. We will accompany you, yes?”
King nodded. He glanced down at the man’s legs, saw the dried and frozen blood on his knees. He looked up and took in the sniper rifle hanging from the sling. A Dragunov, 7.62mm. These men were soldiers, not hunters. And the only creatures being hunted if he allowed them to travel with them would be Caroline and himself. These men were part of a team hunting the asset. He was certain of that much. And what of the man shooting at them from the second rendezvous? Was he part of this hunter team? King suspected he’d find out before long. Maybe these men would lead them right into another trap. In fact, he knew they would.
King turned to Caroline and winked. When he looked back at the two men, he already had his right arm scything through the air, the edge of his hand striking the man with the sniper rifle in the throat. He allowed his own momentum to throw him towards the second man, and swung a haymaker left fist into the man’s jaw. The man went down, but his finger caught the trigger of his rifle and a fully-automatic burst filled the air and threw snow and ice fragments over them as the bullets riddled the ice at Caroline’s feet. There was a crack like gunfire as the ice shattered all around Caroline, her weight accelerating the effect. A spider’s web of snow crust, widening until the blueish ice was visible underneath. Caroline looked up, stared directly into King’s eyes for a fleeting moment, then with a final crack, that echoed all around the valley, the ice gave way and Caroline fell through and disappeared.
King stared at the hole, the water lapping at the edges. He took a step forward, then hesitated and turned back to the two men on the ground. One was moving, moaning and reaching for his weapon. King raised his foot and pounded down on the side of the man’s head. He dropped lifelessly. King suspected he was merely unconscious, but wasted no time following up with another stamp. He did the same to the other man, who was clutching his throat and staring at the sky. King ripped the Dragunov sniper rifle off the man’s shoulder and worked the action and dropped the safety. He dug through the man’s utility vest and found a tactical torch and switched it on. The red light cut a swathe through the gloom and King shoved the handle in his mouth, bit down hard and took a deep breath, before sliding on his stomach over the lip of ice and into the water.
The water shocked his system, but he had been ready for it. He needed to move and not let the shock take over. Every ounce of his being wanted him to breathe in, but he willed himself not to. The cold water hurt his eyes and ears, but the water was thankfully crystal-clear, and the torch illuminated the underside of the ice and created a halo of red around him. He felt the current take him, and once he had established the direction of travel, he kicked and clawed with it with all his might.
Twenty-seconds in and he was fighting the need to take a breath, but he could see the dark shape in front of him, floating eerily in the current and scraping the underside of the ice. He gripped the rifle with all his strength, powered his legs and left arm until he collided with Caroline’s lifeless form and wrapped his arm around her chest. He already had the muzzle of the rifle scraping against the ice and he jammed it in hard to stop them in the flow. He fired, and the muzzle flash reflected against the ice like sheet lightning, but the sound was faint and supressed by the water. He fired again and continued to squeeze the trigger as he breathed out the last of his breath and felt himself go lightheaded. He had lost count of the gunshots, and he was losing his hold on Caroline. He shifted his grip on her and realised that he had to let the weapon go. He pounded the ice amongst the bullet strikes and felt it give. He powered his legs to keep him near the ice, but with his breath gone he had lost all his buoyancy and he was sinking fast. With the desperation to force an intake of breath almost too much to bear, he attacked the ice with punch after punch, not noticing the searing pain of his knuckles cracking, nor the fact he had started to taste the water as he sucked in minute breaths in his bid to break through the ice.
He could see the ice broken, the shards floating and bouncing on the surface, the torch lighting them from underneath. But they just as well have remained solid and locking them in their watery grave, because without the buoyancy, the air in his lungs, he could not get them to it. He watched, the ice getting further and further away as they sunk and
