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  Chapter 2

  Copenhagen

  Denmark

  2:50pm

  The rev of the V8 engine cut through the protruding silence like a knife, the Yamaha bike racing through the wide terrain leaving everything as a white streaming blur, the rider wearing a black helmet, black leather jacket and tight fitted pants hunched low on the bike trying to streamline himself as he cut through space. This road was always empty and today was no exception, so he felt no need to try to slow down.

  Glancing up, he saw the curve up ahead and threw himself bodily into the curve, slanting the bike precariously almost shearing of his kneecaps in the process, but he was unperturbed.

  The adrenaline surge was spurring him on. The trip to Denmark had been an avenue to purge him of his personal demons. Last year, he had lost a friend and fellow archaeologist in a remote dig in Chile, someone he cared about and possibly could have loved, during the climb one of her safety harnesses had snapped mid-air and she tumbled to the ground, snapping her neck.

  She had died immediately.

  The authorities had ruled at any foul play and deemed it an accident, but somehow he felt it was his fault, like he should have looked out for her.

  Protected her.

  Then the drinking had started, and he slowly lost all interest in his work, becoming a shadow of his former self, drowning his sorrows in a bottle. Sleeping became difficult, as he saw her face in his mind.

  Taunting him.

  Haunting him.

  He revved the bike even harder, streaking through the road at tremendous pace and the majestic building of Phoenix Copenhagen loomed over, forced to slow down as he entered the busy roads.

  The Phoenix Copenhagen was surrounded by exquisite buildings such as the Royal Theatre, The Opera House and the famous Trivoli Gardens,

  He was always immersed in ancient beauty that he utterly failed to notice the splendour of such landmarks, and the rich heritage and culture buried in its history.

  Maybe he was losing his touch with reality.

  Walking through the hotel's revolving doors, he saw the receptionist and walked over to him

  "Good day Frank, keys please"

  "Right away, Mr Hunt" Frank said smiling as he quickly placed the keys on the table

  Hunt snatched the keys and quickly walked to the elevators, so lost in his thoughts that he failed to notice that he was being followed...

  Two men.

  Moving with military precision.

  Intent and lethal...it was clear that they were hunting.

  PING.

  The clang of the elevator resounded through the hallway as Ian Hunt stepped out, the adrenaline still coursing through him, as he walked to his door about to insert his key, he noticed that his door was ajar.

  Alarm bells in his head started ringing.

  He always left his door locked.

  "Mr Hunt!" a voice called down the hallway.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a stockily built man dressed in a tight fitting tuxedo, earpiece fitted securely in his left ear pull free a silenced Sig Sauer semi-auto pistol and aim it at him.

  The man was aiming for his upper torso.

  The upper torso provided the least margin for error.

  He was a professional

  Hunt immediately dove into his hotel room as rounds tore into the wall where he was just standing. Three perfect cylindrical holes appeared on the wall.

  Shit

  He mentally assessed the situation, he was unarmed and his assailant was packing a Sig Sauer pistol, maximum 15 rounds, he had just wasted 3 rounds.

  He had 12 left.

  Plenty to kill anything that moved.

  He needed to stop reacting to the situation and start acting, he had been dancing on the gunman terms and he was about to change that.

  He needed a weapon.

  Quickly scanning his room for anything that could be used as a weapon, he settled for the cutlery on his serving tray.

  The door to his room streaked open.

  Fluidly moving he grasped the eating knife on his food tray and dove for the gunman, slamming the blade into the assailant wrist as he shouldered through the door,

  The Sig clattered to the floor.

  His attacker gave of nothing more than a grunt and attacked him feverishly with a flurry of deadly blows, which Hunt met with cool countenance, blocking every blow in a deadly ballet of hand to hand combat

  He wasn't such easy prey

  He wasn't going down that easily.

  Perhaps fatigue, loss of blood or by mere chance his attacker overextended a punch and Hunt severely punished him for it, slamming the heel of his palm hard into his attacker's nose and breaking it, before plunging his knife into his attacker's meaty throat.

  It all happened in seconds.

  His assailant was dead.

  It seemed his personal demons had found him again in Copenhagen. Staring down at the body of the man he had just killed, Ian Hunt assessed the situation, he was being hunted for unknown reasons and the way his attacker had handled himself in the fight had suggested military training.

  Why was the military hunting him?

  He quickly frisked the body of the dead man and expectedly he found nothing, no form of ID on the body.

  No driver's license.

  No passport.

  Just a spare mag of ammunition which he quickly pocketed along with the gun.

  He needed to leave now.

  Quickly walking over to his nightstand stand to where his laptop was, he noticed the e-mail icon was glowing, and upon hovering the mouse on the icon he found out it was from Professor Maxmilian.

  Why did his mentor, the man who had taught him everything he knew send him an email instead of calling?

  He hadn't spoken to the man in five years.

  Relegating his thoughts to the back of his mind, he snapped the laptop closed and stuffed it into his travel bag, put the gun in the small of his back, held by his waistband and set out to systemically wipe his fingerprints from anything he had touched.

  Nothing spoils a day like INTERPOL on your doorstep, wanting you for murder.

  After wiping of his prints, Hunt stepped out of his hotel room, and made his way to the elevator.

  He noticed something odd.

  The elevator was coming up.

  And it was stopping at his floor.

  He never believed in coincidences.

  Quickly drawing the Sig Sauer free he waited patiently.

  PING.

  The elevator doors chimed loudly as it opened, and two men stepped off it and into the hallway, the men carried themselves in a familiar way.

  Purposeful, most likely military.

  And they both wore ill-fitted tuxedos, with earpieces in their left ears.

  There was also a noticeable bulge in the left hand sides of both men.

  They were carrying weapons.

  Wasting no time Hunt decided to go on the offensive, fluidly bring his weapon to bear and squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession.

  The silenced weapon sputtered, sounding no louder than a cough.

  He felt the recoil in his arm, it had been a while since he last fired a weapon but it was like riding a bike.

  Old instincts came rushing back.

  Neat holes appeared on the foreheads of both men, as their bodies crumpled to the floor.

  They never stood a chance.

  Outside Phoenix Copenhagen

  Denmark

  3:00pm

  Commander Trent immediately knew something was wrong, and years of battles in Afghanistan and the middle east had honed his instincts to a whole new level, after he had discovered who the professor had emailed, he had quickly used his contacts and connections to find out where the recipient of the email was holing up.

  In Copenhagen.

  Using his benefactor's private jet, he had quickly transported his tactical strike team from Peru to Denmark where he had arranged with another tactical team
on ground.

  Then he had lain in wait for his target.

  There was a popular military tactic: Keep the enemy's focus on the left hand, wreak havoc with the right.

  He let his target feel he had the upper hand.

  Commander Trent glanced at the laptop screen in which a red dot was moving steadily, imposed on the building's schematics.

  "Tango to team, target is headed for the stairs, intercept and retrieve the computer, repeat computer is paramount"

  "Roger that"

  Commander Trent smiled.

  The game was just starting.

  Hunt vaulted down the stairs, taking them three at a time, by now he was absolutely positive that whoever was after him had already commandeered the elevator and would have noticed that he had fled his room. That one left one route of escape.

  The stairways.

  They would look to swarm the stairs and flush him out into the open, and he didn't like to think about what would happen after that.

  After all he had killed three of their men.

  Boom! Boom!

  Sparks of fire flew from where the bullets struck the metal rail handles of the stairs, Hunt recoiled instantly for fear of being hit by a stray bullet or ricochet, in his desperation he had failed to notice that three suited men were now chasing after him.

  Suited men with earpieces in their ears.

  What disturbed him greatly was that the assassins were no longer bothered with subtlety as their silencers were off.

  Which also meant more firepower.

  Hunt returned fire-pot-shots really as he didn't have a clear line of sight, but his pursuers ducked, giving him momentary respite to increase the distance between them. Sensing rather than seeing the figure blind aim, Hunt took blind aim and squeezed the trigger twice.

  A sharp cry followed by body tumbling to the ground.

  The exit door loomed in front of him.

  Hunt sped through it and burst out into the ever busy streets of Copenhagen.

  Commander Trent Appleby watched with dark amusement at the events that unfolded in front of his eyes, he had to give the man credit, he had managed to evade all his best agents even killing three of them.

  But it had all been part of his plan.

  Every good Commander had to have one even in the hairiest situation.

  Splashes of intelligence passed to and fro between his agents through the secure line, the target had managed to evade the team sent after him and he and was now at large in the intertwining streets of Copenhagen.

  "Target....escaped"

  "Visual confirmed, target on foot.... intersection"

  "Now in pursuit"

  "Heads up, Target armed and dangerous......former Navy Seal....took down Paul and his squadron"

  Commander Trent stared at the screen.

  While the enemy watches the left hand, wreak havoc with the right.

  Hunt scanned the streets and began walking briskly, even without looking over his shoulders using the glasses in stores and cars he checked if he was being followed.

  He doubted he would see anything.

  The men who hunted him were professionals, it was almost as if they were holding back.

  He had to get off the roads.

  Traffic had slowed down and this was his perfect escape opportunity, the men sent to assassinate him couldn't be far behind, and he was quickly running at of ammunition.

  Raising his Sig Sauer, he let loose some shots in the air.

  Chaos reigned supreme.

  Men, women and children ran helter skelter, trying to find cover people screaming and road users blaring their horns unnecessarily. Hunt felt comfortable in the chaos, as it provided him a perfect avenue for escape.

  Spotting a Mini Cooper up ahead, Hunt walked up briskly to it, and shattered the window using his elbow. The woman in the car let out an ear piercing wail.

  "Jeg har brug for bilen" He said briskly switching to the native Danish all the while pointing his weapon at the woman's face. She nodded briskly, tears streaking down her beautiful face as she gingerly stepped out of the car.

  "Tak" he mumbled.

  Thanks.

  Quickly shifting gears, popping the clutch and slamming the accelerator, he sped off, the small car whining furiously leaving a cloud of smoke smelling of burnt rubber.

  Where's the police when you need them?

  He had hoped the police would show up and the men hunting would be forced to give up and try again some other day.

  But so far, today had not been his day.

  Throaty growls sounded just behind him, and glancing back he saw two sleek black Lamborghini's peel off from the crowd and start after him.

  Two Lamborghini's

  One Mini-Cooper.

  Yeah, today just wasn't his day.