Black Ice (Hunters Inc Book 2)

  HUNTERS INC (BOOK TWO)

  BLACK ICE

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Everything ready?... and the van?... good. When that place blows, I want to be as far away from here as possible… C’est la vie, I don’t care if there are women and children, not my fucking problem… just do your job, you’re not being paid to ask questions”

  The world was a mess, he knew it, governments knew it, hell, everybody knew it.

  Sometimes it took a little storm to bring the calm, or should that be the storm before a nice fat paycheck so he could retire on a beach somewhere hot and with no extradition treaty…

  Just a few more hours and he would be out of this god forsaken rat race and then the rest of the world could go fuck itself…

  ***

  Sarah had been woken suddenly by the sound of a loud and somewhat angry voice coming from the room next door.

  Had she really just heard what she thought she had? or could her tired, jetlagged mind be playing tricks on her, maybe it was another guest innocently watching a late-night movie?

  But the lady at reception had assured her of a good night’s sleep when she had checked in, she was the only guest staying on that floor.

  Sarah felt her heart rate increase, her breathing becoming panicked, sending a rush of adrenaline through her body as she fought the fight or flight reaction that was willing her to get out of the bed.

  She didn’t move, her mind played the words over and over again, the bed sheets twisting between her delicate fingers, not unlike the way they had when she had been a small child, praying that the Boogieman wasn’t hiding beneath her bed.

  But this wasn’t the voice of the Boogieman, not the one she had been afraid of back then anyway, no, this one was very much real, not a figment of her once immature imagination.

  She was thousands of miles away from home, alone in a strange city, in a strange country, in a strange hotel room and she needed help.

  The voice had been American, she was sure of it, and that’s what had chilled her the most.

  But, she had to keep her head, to think.

  The last thing she should to do was panic and draw unnecessary attention to herself, that wouldn’t do at all.

  If the ‘American’ didn’t give a shit about killing women and children, chances were, he wouldn’t much care about leaving the body of a young woman in a seedy hotel room.

  But, where would she go, who would she tell, and most importantly, would anyone believe her?

  If she left the room, he would hear her, figure she had probably heard him, or them.

  She had no idea how many people were in that room, she’d thought it was empty, just like every other room on her floor, Sarah guessed she was wrong.

  The walls were thin, too thin, she needed to keep moving around in the bed to a minimum, but even her breathing sounded as though it was being magnified against the silence of the room.

  To start bumping around trying to get her clothes on without making a noise was going to be near on impossible.

  Sarah eased herself from the bed, her movements slow, pausing every few seconds to make sure she hadn’t been heard.

  Shit, even her bones felt like they were creaking, the sound mimicking those of stiff unused doors like the ones found in old abandoned houses, her brain had decided now was as good a time as any to start playing paranoid tricks on her… great!

  “Dad… I think something is wrong” her voice low, almost an inaudible whisper as she closed the bathroom door, giving up a silent prayer of thanks that it didn’t join the imaginary creaking of her bones as it went.

  The room smelt musty and damp, used.

  “Sarah, what’s wrong Honey?” the comforting sound of her father’s voice instantly brought tears to her eyes.

  In that moment, all her urges to be Miss Independent seemed so foolish. In that moment, she wished he had put his foot down and refused to let her travel alone, pull the parent card, but it was too late for that now.

  She took deep breaths, needing to compose herself before she spoke, the lump forming within her throat making it more than a little difficult to swallow.

  “I think I heard them say they are gonna blow something up, the room next door. Dad, I’m scared, what should I do?” he would know, he always did. Mr. Fix it.

  There had been a moments' pause before he answered, no more than a couple of seconds, but it had been there. Sarah had noticed it and to her, it felt like a life time.

  “You sure? Could you have been having a dream?”

  Could she? Had she heard what she thought, or was it her imagination playing tricks on her half-awake brain?

  “No Dad, it wasn’t a dream, I know what I heard. I’m scared, what should I do?” it hadn’t been a dream, what she heard wouldn’t have had a place amongst the sort of things that occupied her thoughts when she closed her eyes and laid her head on a pillow.

  “Where are you now?” She sensed the urgency in his voice, grateful that he didn’t think she was going out of her mind.

  “I’m in the bathroom, just seemed like the safest place” in a bathroom, scared out of her mind, that’s where.

  “OK, I need you to be as quiet as you can ok, no noise. If you’re right, you don’t want them to know that you heard them. If you can hear them, it means they can hear you. I am gonna need you to sit tight for a while ok, I will get help to you as soon as I can. Keep your phone on silent and don’t use it unless you need to. I’m gonna make a couple of calls then ring you back. Sit tight ok”

  Sarah closed her eyes and nodded, but there was no one there to see it.

  She had never felt so alone, she needed him to come and get her, needed to go back to being his little girl, just her and dad again. Sarah wanted to go home.

  “Hurry” but no reply came, no words of comfort, he had already hung up.

  Sarah sat on the cold tiled floor, desperately holding on to her phone, staring at the blank screen, willing him to call back, but he didn’t.

  Her knees pulled up tightly to her chest, head dropped and rested on top of them as a desperate shiver passed over her entire body. She hadn’t counted on it being so cold down here, the soft, warm comforter just a few feet away on the bed was screaming for her to grab it and pull it into the bathroom.

  She opened the door, still expecting to hear the creak that she knew wasn’t there, nerves flooding her with confused signals as she took a deep breath and held it.

  Sarah crawled over to the bed, pulled the comforter off and dragged it back into the bathroom, only then allowing herself to exhale, her heart beating loudly.

  Could the American hear her breathing? she tried to fill her lungs as infrequently as her body would allow, she knew this was probably taking paranoia just that little bit too far, but she wasn’t prepared to take any chances.

  The bathroom was tiny, couldn’t swing a kitten, never mind a cat, any noise she made was less likely to echo, and it was furthest away from the adjoining wall that the two rooms shared.

  Sarah had surprised herself, gone into survival mode without even thinking about it, allowing her instincts to take over.

  She could do this. What
was a few hours curled up on a bathroom floor? The little girl inside just need her Dad to hurry.

  Connor closed the zipper on his leather holdall, pulled the black Hunters Inc: baseball cap low over his eyes, grabbed his car keys from his newly fitted granite counter top and walked out of his house, the heavy-set door closing and automatically locking behind him.

  He was still getting used to living a comfortable life, the job at Hunters Inc; enabling him to afford a comfortable standard of living, then again, any standard was better than the one he had survived growing up.

  Life in the military had given him a purpose, direction, had stopped him heading down the same destructive path that so many of the neighborhood kids had chosen.

  Town full of no hopers, that’s what his mom always said, when she had been around to say it.

  She had a habit of skipping out on him every few weeks, usually to party with whichever low life scum bag she had picked up in the bar during one of her many benders. She always came back, sometimes with a fresh split lip or black eye, sometimes with track marks, but she always came back. Screamed at him before she collapsed onto her bed and slept for days on end, only venturing out for food, until the last time when she had gone off with Jim, or John, or whatever the hell his name was, but that time she hadn’t come back.

  Connor had been eighteen the last time she had skipped out on him, days had turned into weeks, she called the odd time, asking if there was any mail, any checks, but never once had she asked about him, about how he was, how he was surviving. So one day, Connor had followed in her footsteps, packed what little he had, closed the trailer door, walked away and never looked back.

  He had signed up and became part of a family for the first time in his life, a family he loved, a family he would give anything to protect, a family that loved him in return.

  He didn’t think about her so much anymore, if at all, in the beginning he waited for the phone call telling him she had been found in a ditch somewhere, but the call never came and eventually, Connor stopped waiting.

  His first overseas gig, about damn time.

  Locate a female skater, and bring her home. Sounded simple enough.

  The initial details from Jenson the ops leader had been vague, ‘get your ass to the airstrip, you’re going to Helsinki, you and Harry have an American to bring home’ but it had been all he needed.

  Connor had been getting restless, bored of firing his newly acquired Sig Sauer into a torso mold of ballistics gel. He needed something more, something to get his teeth into and this little adventure might just be what he needed to scratch his spreading itch.

  Helsinki.

  It had to be somewhere cold.

  He hated the cold, made his bones ache. Couldn’t have been somewhere hot with a sandy beach and a nice little cabana for him to lounge in, no… that would have been far too much to hope for.

  Still, it could have been worse, he could’ve endured another torturous weekend sat on his couch creaming some pathetic arrogant teenager who spent far too much time with his hand in his sweat pants, in the latest online game. Call it his guilty pleasure. Not like he had much else to fill his spare time.

  Connor seriously needed to think about getting out and explore his new neighborhood some more, maybe hit a couple of bars.

  Perhaps Chris, the team newbie might be up for taking in a little of the local nightlife with him, yeah, he needed to blow the cobwebs away. A few beers, maybe shooting a few rounds of pool, buy a lady a drink or two before walking her home might be just what he needed.

  Who was he kidding, the kind of woman who invited him in for a coffee wasn’t what he would class as a lady, but they served a purpose and didn’t want to sit and chat after, so he was more than good with that.

  Connor hit accept on his phone as the screen lit up from its hands-free cradle on his dash.

  “Doc…”

  He smiled, liked how Jenson ‘java’ Walker, his old co in the army still used his old tag. It reminded him of a life left behind, a life he had loved, a life that had nurtured him into the man he was now, but it was a life he wasn’t sorry he’d walked away from, it had been time.

  ‘Doc’ had been from his days as the temp medic, he had been so wet behind the ears back then, but knew how to apply a pressure bandage when a friendly game of flick knife chicken had resulted in some poor douche earning a nice slice to his thigh, Connor had been quick on his feet, saved the guy from bleeding out and the job was his.

  From that point on, he had been the patch em up guy, until he decided enough was enough and had followed his brothers in arms and called time on that chapter of his life.

  “On my way now, how long before wheels up?” Connor weaved his company issue top spec Range Rover through the late-night traffic, throwing out a few ‘move dick head’ and ‘fuck sake’s as he watched the accelerator needle creep further and further past the legal speed limit.

  Thank god there wasn’t a five-mile tail back to contend with, or he would have resorted to ramming a few light weight Japanese tin cans off the road as he cleared himself a path.

  “That depends on how soon you get there, they’re waiting on you. I have Bud on another line, I’m gonna patch him in so we can have a three- way”

  “You’re sooo not my type boss” Connor heard the familiar dulcet tones of his friend and team mate Harry ‘Bud’ Taylor, and laughed.

  Harry had earned the tag ‘Bud’ because he grown up in a bar, not the most original nick name, but it suited the man perfectly.

  Back in the day, Jenson would have kicked Harry’s ass for throwing a remark out like that, he’d been a hard but fair task master, had the highest level of respect from the men he commanded, that’s why they had all agreed to hand over leadership of the Hunters Inc; team to him without question or hesitation.

  It was a formula that worked and worked well.

  The joke would have been completely wasted on Jenson, shame, the opportunities to put one over on him were few and far between and they needed to be taken whenever and wherever they presented themselves.

  “Fuck off, Dick!” Jenson replied in his usual flat tone. He was a man of few emotions, few he let the world see at least. But then his divorce had been finalized a couple of weeks ago and Connor knew Jenson would probably see it as failing, something he didn’t do.

  He’d been stuck in a permanent shit storm of a mood ever since, barking at anyone who dare approach him before he had downed at least three cups of java sludge in a morning.

  Both men boomed laughter into the conference call.

  Man, he loved working with his team, he knew them inside out, and them him, wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “And I suppose ‘Tags’ and ‘Jack’ had other plans this weekend, is that why we got the job picking up the Ice Queen?” referencing two other members of their team. Connor checked his rearview just a little more frequently than any normal driver, it was a force of habit, along with changing route every time he left his home or work, he didn’t like taking chances, he didn’t like being predictable.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but Burt and Ernie are unavailable, on another job and that’s all you need to know. Why, you have plans? Or were you gonna be nuking a candlelight Carbonara for one again?”

  Connor heard a loud slurp in his ear, no doubt Jenson ‘Java’ Walker would be sat on his couch, feet up, sipping his millionth cup of joe that day, the man was addicted to the stuff, that’s how he got his call sign.

  Connor was a member of the seven-man team that each owned an equal share of the newly formed company Hunters Inc; along with a silent financial partner in the shape of Billionaire and owner of a high-end hotel chain, Ray Hunter.

  Jenson ‘Java’ Walker, Connor ‘Doc’ Parry, Dylan ‘Tag’ Briggs, Taylor ‘Jack’ Jones, Jackson Hunter who had insisted his name was way to cool not to be used as his tag, and finally, Chris ‘Newbie’ Hunter, the only member of the team not to have been in the forces. That was his team, along with Em
who was back at headquarters working her computer genius magic. Jackson and Chris were brothers and the sons of Ray and Elizabeth Hunter

  They hadn’t been short of private security jobs since word started to spread, although they were still new to the game and everything was a learning curve, no backing from Uncle Sam if the shit hit the proverbial fan.

  This time they were on their own, although being ex forces had acquired them more than a strong under-ground network that they could call upon if they needed too.

  “So, what we got?” Connor pulled off the road and turned down a dirt track that was hidden from view, headed for the privately-owned airstrip where the company Learjet was housed.

  He was still having trouble getting his head around a Billionaire investor in their joint company, and all the advantages that afforded them, it made work and home life a hell of a lot easier than it used to be, no doubt about that.

  He wasn’t sure how the hell he had managed to land this gig, but he wasn’t about to look a damn gift horse in the mouth, all he knew was that since they had agreed to go into the private security business, they hadn’t looked back.

  But Connor was restless, he needed his mind occupied, never had been one for sitting around, waiting, plus, they were good at what they did. Damn good.

  His bank balance certainly reflected that.

  “Sarah Williams, twenty-three. Figure skater. Her Father brought us in. She called him from her hotel room, said she had over heard what sounded like a bomb plot.” Bomb plot? Maybe not so simple after all.

  “Do we think it’s credible? Anything to back up what she thinks she heard?” Harry had asked the same question that he had though himself.

  This was one hell of a case of overreaction if she wasn’t sure.

  You didn’t go throwing round words like ‘bomb’ and ‘plot’ these days, not unless you were so sure that you could stake your house on what you ‘thought’ you heard. ‘Thought’ not quite good enough in his mind.