Hunted

Book 0: BookShots

by James Patterson, Andrew Holmes

Genres: Suspense; Political Thrillers; Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

James Patterson's BookShots. Short, fast-paced, high-impact entertainment.

When former SAS captain David Shelley goes looking for an old comrade who has taken to a life on the streets, he finds his friend is dead. An MI5 agent contacts Shelley and arranges a meeting. All the signs point to murder, and the agent believes this is part of something much bigger.

The only way Shelley can discover the truth is to put himself on the streets, and into the same danger that got his friend killed.

Release date: September 6, 2016

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Print pages: 144

Sample

Chapter 1

Two men trod carefully through the trees in search of their prey. Bluebells and wild garlic were underfoot, beech and Douglas firs on all sides, tendrils of early morning fog still clinging to the damp slopes. Somewhere in this wood was the quarry.

The man in front, feeling brave thanks to the morning sherry, his bolt-action Purdey, and the security man covering his back, was Lord Oakleigh. A Queen’s Counsel lawyer of impeccable education, he had an impressive listing in Debrett’s and his peer’s robes were tailored by Ede & Ravenscroft. Oakleigh had long ago decided that these accomplishments paled in comparison to the way he felt now—this particular mix of adrenaline and fear, this feeling of being so close to death.

This, he had decided, was life. And he was going to live it.

The car had collected him at 4:00 a.m. He’d taken the eye mask he was given, relaxed in the back of the Bentley, and used the opportunity for sleep. In a couple of hours he arrived at the estate. He recognized some of his fellow hunters, but not all—there were a couple of Americans and a Japanese gentleman he’d never seen before. Nods were exchanged. Curtis and Boyd of The Quarry Co. made brief introductions. All weapons were checked to ensure they were smart-modified, then they were networked and synced to a central hub.

The tweed-wearing English contingent watched, bemused, as the Japanese gentleman’s valet helped him into what looked like tailored disruptive-pattern clothing. Meanwhile the shoot security admired the M600 TrackingPoint precision-guided rifle he carried. Like women fussing over a new baby, they all wanted a hold.

As hunt time approached, the players fell silent. Technicians wearing headphones unloaded observation drones from an operations van. Sherry on silver platters was brought around by blank-faced men in tailcoats. Curtis and Boyd toasted the hunters and, in his absence, the quarry. Lastly, players were assigned their security—Oakleigh was given Alan, his regular man—before a distant report indicated that the hunt had begun and the players moved off along the lawns to the treeline, bristling with weaponry and quivering with expectation.

  

Now deep in the woods, Oakleigh heard the distant chug of Land Rover engines and quad bikes drift in on a light breeze. From overhead came the occasional buzz of a drone, but otherwise it was mostly silent, even more so the farther into the woods they ventured and the more dense it became. It was just the way he liked it. Just him and his prey.

“Ahead, sir,” came Alan’s voice, urgent enough that Oakleigh dropped to one knee and brought the Purdey to his shoulder in one slightly panicked movement. The woods loomed large in his crosshairs, the undergrowth keeping secrets.

“Nothing visible,” he called back over his shoulder, then cleared his throat and tried again, this time with less shaking in his voice. “Nothing up ahead.”

“Just hold it there a moment or so, sir, if you would,” replied Alan, and Oakleigh heard him drop his assault rifle to its strap and reach for his walkie-talkie. “This is red team. Request status report…”

“Anything, Alan?” Oakleigh asked over his shoulder.

“No, sir. No visuals from the drones. None of the players report any activity.”

“Then our boy is still hiding.”

“It would seem that way, sir.”

“Why is he not trying to make his way to the perimeter? That’s what they usually do.”

“The first rule of combat is to do the opposite of what the enemy expects, sir.”

“But this isn’t combat. This is a hunt.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it isn’t much of a hunt if the quarry’s hiding, is it?” Oakleigh heard the note of indignation in his voice and knew it sounded less like genuine outrage and more like fear, so he put his eye back to the scope and swept the rifle barrel from left to right, trying to keep a lid on his nerves. He wanted a challenge. But he didn’t want to die.

Don’t be stupid. You’re not going to die.

But then came the crackle of distant gunfire, quickly followed by a squall of static.

“Quarry spotted. Repeat: quarry spotted.”

Oakleigh’s heart jackhammered, and he found himself of two minds. On the one hand, he wanted to be in the thick of the action. Last night he’d even entertained thoughts of being the winning player, imagining the admiration of his fellow hunters, ripples that would extend outwards to London and the corridors of power, the private members’ clubs of the Strand, and chambers of Parliament.

On the other hand, now that the quarry had shown himself capable of evading the hunters and drones for so long, he felt differently.

From behind came a rustling sound and then a thump. Alan made a gurgling sound.

Oakleigh realized too late that something was wrong and wheeled around, fumbling with the rifle.

A shot rang out and Alan’s walkie-talkie squawked.

“Red team, report! Repeat: red team, report!”

Chapter 2

Cookie had been hiding in the lower branches of a beech. From the tree he’d torn a decent-sized stick, not snapping it, but twisting so it came away with a jagged end. Not exactly sharp. But not blunt, either. It was better than nothing.

He’d watched the player and his bodyguard below, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Forget the nervous old guy. He had a beautiful Purdey, but he was shaking like a shitting dog. The bodyguard was dangerous, but the moment Cookie saw him drop his rifle to its strap, he knew the guy was dead meat.

Sure enough, the guard never knew what hit him. Neither of the hunters had bothered looking up, supreme predators though they were, and Cookie dropped silently behind Alan, bare feet on the cool woodland floor. As his left arm encircled Alan’s neck, his elbow angled so that his target’s carotid artery was fat, his right arm plunged the stick into the exposed flesh.

But the years of drugs and booze and sleeping rough had taken their toll, and even as he let Alan slide to the ground to bleed out in seconds, the old guy was spinning around and leveling his hunting rifle. And where once Cookie’s reactions had been as fast as his brain, now the two were out of alignment.

Oakleigh pulled the trigger. Cookie had already seen that he was left-handed and knew how the weapon would pull, and so he twisted in the opposite direction. But even so, he was too slow.

He heard tree bark crack and saw splinters fly a microsecond before he heard the shot. A second later, pain flared along his side and he felt blood pool in the waistband of his jeans.

The stick was still in his hand, so he stepped forward and rammed it into the old guy’s throat, cursing him for a coward, as Oakleigh folded to the ground with the stick protruding from his neck.

“Red team, report! Red team, report!” wailed the walkie-talkie. But even though Cookie knew others would be arriving soon, he needed a moment to compose himself, so he leaned against a tree, pressing his palm to the spot where the bullet had grazed him. He pulled up his sweater to inspect the wound. It looked bad, but he knew from painful experience it was nothing to worry a. . .