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  The Hunt

  A Max Austin Thriller - Book Four of The Russian Assassin Series

  Jack Arbor

  High Caliber Books

  THE HUNT

  (A MAX AUSTIN THRILLER - BOOK FOUR)

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-947696-06-8

  ISBN-10: 1-947696-06-8

  Copyright 2019 by Jack Arbor and Ajax Media Group, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, internet transmission, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews.

  Requests to publish work from this book should be sent to: [email protected]

  Edition 1.0

  Published by High Caliber Books

  Cover art by: www.damonza.com

  Bio photo credit: www.johnlilleyphotography.com

  For the firefighters that fought the Lake Christine fire in Basalt, Colorado in the summer of 2018, especially those who saved the El Jebel trailer park and nearby neighborhoods on the night of July 4, 2018.

  We are eternally grateful.

  “History is a set of lies agreed upon.”

  ~Napoléon Bonaparte

  “Maybe you are searching among the branches for what only appears in the roots.”

  ~Rumi

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Epilogue

  If You Liked This Book …

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Join My Mailing List

  About the Author

  Also By Jack Arbor

  Chapter One from Cat & Mouse

  One

  Aras Valley in Turkey Near the Armenian Border

  A peregrine falcon soared in lazy circles, her outstretched wings and tail forming a triangular silhouette against a pink morning sky. The bird of prey flapped her wings once and arced against an air current before pointing south and floating with the slip stream. A moment later she pumped her muscular wings again and soared in a broad figure eight while sinking closer to the arid ground.

  A breeze ruffled the pale green buds of a goosefoot plant as silence blanketed the dusty steppes of the barren desert.

  The falcon arched her back and glided lower, her razor-sharp eyes looking for movement on the ground below. Without warning, she dove with knife-like talons outstretched. A cloud of dirt exploded from the ground, and the bird flapped her massive wings once to propel herself back into the air while clutching a struggling long-eared hedgehog in her claws.

  Five klicks to the south, Max Austin pulled his eye from the scope in time to see the culmination of the falcon’s hunt. As the powerful bird rose into the eastern sky, he grinned in admiration of the near-perfect display of Darwinian evolution. Since the dawn of time, stronger hunters prevailed over weaker prey. A comforting thought.

  A disturbance on the horizon caught his eye and he scanned the valley. A plume of dust rose in the air against a tan and green background. The dust cloud’s grainy tail dissipated in the light breeze as it moved along a barely visible double-track road. Max tapped the arm of the man lying next to him, who gave him a thumb’s up.

  The source of the dust plume appeared in his scope. A caravan of three tan-colored vehicles sped along the trail as their headlights cut a swath through the early morning gloom and swirling dirt. He tracked the approaching convoy with the muzzle of a Knight’s Armament SR-25 Mk 11 sniper rifle. The flat desert-tan hoods and reinforced cattle guards of three Humvees bounced along the rutted track three klicks from their position. No markings were visible along the vehicle’s flanks, but machine gun turrets jutted from behind armored plating on the lead and trailing Humvees. Helmeted heads swayed to the rhythm of the vehicles. Max’s intel indicated the vehicles were operated by a team of Russian soldiers.

  Ex-Russian soldiers, actually. The worst kind. With nothing to lose and heads filled with visions of plunder. Everyone in Russia was getting rich, why not them? Max checked his watch. Right on time. Just like his intel indicated. The intel that was just too convenient, too easy.

  A gravelly voice with a thick accent sounded through his comm device. “Three bogeys at one klick.”

  Max grimaced. His old Iraqi friend had a penchant for mixing his military slang. Toggling his mic, he whispered, “Sammi, bogeys are unidentified aircraft. Are you saying we have aircraft to deal with?”

  Sammir Hassim, camouflaged in desert fatigues and armed with an M16 rifle he picked up somewhere during Desert Storm, was positioned along a scrabble-covered ridge on the far side of the valley to Max’s left. Sammi also had a set of Steiner M2080 binoculars attached to a short tripod. The Iraqi clicked his comm device to indicate the negative.

  Max panned his rifle left, following the road ahead of the speeding convoy. According to his intel, their destination was a gathering of four massive tents erected along a steppe at his eleven o’clock position. The green canvas-sided buildings had aluminum frames, galvanized supports, and were the size of half a football field. They resembled the mess hall tents used by the Russian military.

  As the edge of the tent colony appeared in his scope, a door flung open and two soldiers in black ducked into the sunlight. Each man wore a standard-issue flak vest and a ball cap devoid of insignia. Their uniforms were common to military contractors, and their actions indicated they were well trained. Their skin was light, but otherwise their nationality was indecipherable over the long distance.

  His spotter lay prone next to him on the dusty ground among a stand of goosefoot and bramble. A thatch of indigenous flora was affixed to their helmets, and they wore desert camouflage and tan flak vests. His rifle barrel stuck out from the stand of goosefoot, but otherwise they were invisible.

  Thanks for the training, Dad. It keeps coming in handy.

  The man next to him, the indomitable ex-CIA black-ops operative named Spencer White, watched the scene through a Leica rangefinder balanced on a small tri
pod. A filter was affixed to the Leica’s lens to eliminate reflections from the harsh desert sun.

  The three men had been in position for hours, the only action interrupting the monotony was the occasional bird soaring overhead and the banging of a tent door loose in the early morning wind.

  “Eight six two meters to the middle Humvee,” Spencer whispered.

  Max slipped his finger into the trigger guard. A little over half a mile. “Wind?”

  A hesitation from his spotter. “Quarter to from the east at three miles per hour.”

  Quarter to meant the wind was coming toward him at a forty-five degree angle to his rifle. Max studied the ballistics chart before putting his eye back to the scope.

  Fish in a barrel.

  Two more soldiers in black uniforms emerged from the tent and hastened to positions twenty meters on either side of the structure. Max followed the approaching vehicles with his rifle until they ground to a halt a dozen meters from the encampment in a flurry of dust.

  A calm settled over the camp. The pale morning light grew stronger as the dust and dirt settled. Out of sight, a falcon chattered. Bramble waved in the breeze.

  At last the canvas door to the tent swung open with a bang that echoed across the dusty landscape. No one appeared.

  Despite the activity at the tent, Max kept the crosshatch of his scope’s reticle centered on the middle vehicle’s rear door. Come on. One shot and we can get outta here.

  Max spoke in a low murmur. “Tell me if anyone emerges from the tent.”

  His spotter made a minute adjustment to his scope. “Nothing moving yet. So far, the intel is holding.”

  “It’s too easy,” Max whispered. This is a trap. But I can’t ignore it, can I? Alex and Arina’s lives are at stake. No other option.

  A month prior, an electronic dossier had come to them through Max’s sometime lover and trusted hacker, Goshawk. She had received it from an intermediary who gave no indication of the origin of the file. Although the dossier was detailed, professional, and organized in a way that reminded Max of his old days at the KGB, the true source of the information proved untraceable, even for the resourceful Goshawk.

  A gritty creak rang out over the desert as the middle Humvee’s door opened on metal hinges caked with dust. Before anyone emerged from the vehicle, a flurry of activity stirred clouds of dirt as men exited the vehicles in unison and fanned out in a defensive position. Max counted eight gray-clad men, each with rifles, sidearms, and ball caps.

  Everyone has their own private army these days.

  A glossy black boot appeared from the middle Humvee, followed by a compact man with a head in the shape of an anvil. He wore Russian military fatigues in desert camouflage and a black-and-white checkered keffiyeh around his neck. A pair of wraparound sunglasses adorned an otherwise bare head. His hand drifted to the leather flap of a hip holster as he surveyed the valley around him.

  Max placed the crosshairs directly on the man’s forehead before shifting a fraction to the left to compensate for the wind.

  Sammi’s voice hissed in his ear. “Action at the tent.”

  Max kept the rifle frozen on the Russian’s oversized head.

  Sammi continued. “Two more. Makes six soldiers outside, plus one guy in a funny suit with one of those hats like Indiana Jones wore in that movie. Take a look.”

  His curiosity piqued, Max let his finger off the trigger and shifted the rifle to his left. The mystery dossier indicated the meeting was a weapons transaction. The seller was a former Russian major named Spartak Polzin, who was peddling five crates of new AN-94 Nikonov assault rifles and assorted spare magazines and ammunition. Spartak was Max’s target, but the file was silent on the buyer’s identity or the intended use of the weapons.

  His scope found a man wearing a tailored linen suit and a fedora standing just outside the tent doors, feet planted, arms crossed.

  Max did a double take. It’s not possible.

  This was the last person he expected to see in the Eastern Turkish desert buying weapons from a man he intended to kill. The buyer, the man in the panama hat, was Victor Dedov, former head of the Belarusian KGB and his father’s old boss.

  Victor Dedov. His pulse quickened.

  Diminutive in stature but commanding in presence, Victor only cared about what’s best for Victor. Since the devastating bomb that killed Max’s parents and his sister’s husband, Max and Victor had developed a stormy relationship. Max believed Victor had concealed the real culprits of the bombing, had tried to swindle Max out of ten million dollars, and revealed a love affair with Max’s sister, Arina. Now Arina and her son, Alex, lived under Victor’s roof in a heavily guarded castle in Switzerland. But what was Victor doing here, in the Turkish desert, meeting a member of the consortium to buy weapons?

  Dedov stood with feet planted, the pleats on his linen suit rustling in the wind. Sun glinted off a metal case sitting on the ground near his leg. No one moved.

  Max swung the scope to find the broad head of the Russian, who started toward the tent flanked by two bodyguards. Max’s finger curled around the trigger as he waited for his target to halt. The two short men cut a stark contrast against the military contractors guarding them. Dedov, trim and neat. Spartak, broad and muscular. The scope’s detail was fine enough for Max to see the pores on his target’s nose.

  Sammi’s voice hissed in his ear. “Four men at the back of the lead vehicle. Unloading crates.”

  A Russian military officer selling surplus weapons on the black market was nothing new. Vast inventories of weapons had gone unaccounted for in the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Russian-made rifles, handguns, grenades, and other small arms had made their way into conflict zones across the globe while their purveyors—current and former Russian military leaders—spent the profits on exotic sports cars and chalets in the south of France.

  What made this transaction different was that Spartak Polzin, a former major in the Russian army and special operations commander in the Russian Spetsnaz, was also known as number five in the consortium, the shadowy group that had placed a bounty on Max’s head.

  “Can you confirm the target’s identity?” Max whispered.

  A lizard darted along the hard dirt while Spencer accessed a file photo on his phone. “Spartak Polzin. Confirmed.”

  Max’s plan to save the lives of his sister and nephew was simple: He would get to the consortium members before they got to them. The more consortium members he killed, the more turmoil and fear festered in the group. To date, he had killed one of the twelve. Spartak was about to be the second.

  His finger tensed on the trigger as the Russian extended a meaty hand to his customer. Max centered the crosshairs on Spartak’s head just behind his ear and moved the muzzle a fraction to the left. As he applied pressure to the trigger, wind kicked up a cloud of sand that dispersed into the air. Max eased up on the trigger.

  Victor Dedov grasped Spartak’s hand, and both men laughed as the major said something and gestured at the four men unloading the crates. The buyer nudged the metal case with his foot, and Spartak pointed at one of his men. As the dust settled from the men’s activities, Max waited a beat for his heart to slow.

  A shout sounded from somewhere among the tents. Soldiers scattered, raising another plume of dust and obscuring Max’s vision. His finger froze with pressure on the trigger. Dedov dove into the tent while Spartak vanished around the fender of Humvee.

  Damn it. What just happened?

  A tiny crack, like a twig snapping underfoot, sounded from behind their position. Max shifted his hand from the rifle’s stock to the pistol at his waist.

  He eased the pistol from its holster while straining to hear any more sounds. Was it just an animal? Risk a turn of the head and violate his cover? Nope. Trust the camouflage.

  Through the lens, Spartak’s gray-clad men formed a defensive position behind the vehicles while Dedov and his black-uniformed crew disappeared. The long morning shadows faded as a hot sun
rose in the east. A crushing silence descended.

  A pop, like a pebble dropping on a larger rock, jolted him. Max instinctively rolled to his right, away from Spencer’s position, while bringing the pistol around.

  He froze as two rifle muzzles stared him in the face and the hulking figures of four gray-uniformed soldiers blocked the sunlight.

  Two

  Aras Valley in Turkey Near the Armenian Border

  The fist slammed into his cheek with the force of a cast-iron pan. A sharp crack filled the tent and Max fell sideways, only to be jerked back to his knees by two Russians. Sparks sprang across his vision and blood spattered as another blow hammered his nose. A punch landed on his temple and he sagged against the grip of his captors, unable to keep himself up.

  A slap to his cheek cleared his senses as a voice rang in his ears. “Come on. Stay with me.”