The Killing Game Read Free Page B

lamp. She brushed the dust and fur that stuck to her clothing, dropping her head to hide the tumult of emotions.
    “What do we do now?”
    “Go back to camp.” There was nothing else to do in the dark. Anger and anguish knotted in her throat.
    Wearily Josef turned and began picking his way along the trail. Axelle wanted to look for the collar but the risk was too high and she hadn’t brought a radio receiver. A harsh wind blew down from the mountain and sliced through the layers of clothing, freezing her to the bone. She hugged herself and trudged onward. The radio squawked and they both startled.
    “I find the cubs. I find the cubs!”
    Anji .
    Axelle grabbed the handset. “What do you mean you found the cubs? Where are you?”
    “They in box in yurt.” It sounded like he was jumping up and down in excitement.
    This didn’t make any sense. The wind gusted in her face as she frowned at the stars.
    “What the hell is going on?” Josef murmured.
    She didn’t know. “Let’s go find out.”
     
    ***
     
    Dempsey and his soldiers remained fixed in position as the strangers disappeared over the ridge. To the east, wolves howled, the cries echoing off giant pinnacles that edged the corridor like row upon row of shark’s teeth. Awareness rippled over Dempsey’s skin like hives.
    “What was that was all about?” Baxter whispered into his personal role radio, which connected the four of them over short distances. Dempsey didn’t answer. He sprinted up the craggy face to see what they’d been looking at. It took him less than a minute to climb there and back again.
    “Empty animal den. Some kind of predator,” he told his unit.
    “Two Westerners? In these mountains? In the middle of the bloody night?” Baxter raised a skeptical brow. “They’re either up to no good or they’re bloody loonies.”
    “And yet, here we are, in these mountains, in the middle of the bloody night,” Taz commented dryly.
    “Aye, but we are up to no good,” said Baxter.
    “And you’re a loony,” Cullen added. The Scots’ amusement faded as an oppressive silence swept around them.
    “You really think we’re going to find this guy out here?” Baxter asked dubiously.
    They had eyes in the sky, but in a wilderness this vast?
    “That’s the mission,” Dempsey said, moving out.
    The terrorist they were tracking had connections that gave politicians hard-ons the size of Cleopatra’s Needle. The brass said they were working on intelligence reports that this guy was heading to the Wakhan Corridor through the Boroghill Pass. In Dempsey’s experience “intelligence” was as trustworthy as a three-year-old with a Kalashnikov.
    So far they’d found sweet FA.
    “Tell us again what we’re doing here?” Baxter grumbled.
    “Following orders.” Dempsey hadn’t failed a mission yet—a soldier with his background couldn’t afford failure of any kind, not if he hoped to stay in the Regiment. And although this part of Afghanistan was not a hot zone for terrorist activity, it might be the best hideout for bad guys avoiding the limelight. Men like their quarry who’d supposedly been dead for the past decade.
    “What now?” Taz asked. Tariq Moheek was an Iraqi-born Christian who’d been forced into exile under Saddam Hussein’s regime. His grandmother had stayed in Iraq, enduring Saddam’s iron fist only to be killed in an American bombing raid during the liberation. The guy spoke eight languages and looked like a local—Taz was the best asset the Regiment had when it came to the Middle Eastern crises. Pity they couldn’t clone him.
    Dempsey pulled his pack onto his back and looked at his squad. They wore gear suitable for high-altitude work, no identifying insignia. They were heavily armed, with webbed vests to keep vital supplies close at hand, and they could survive for weeks without resupply, even in this bleak sterile land.
    He didn’t want to be in this high hostile arena for that long. “Let’s follow these clowns