The Hunters Read Online Free PDF

here.’
    ‘I’m trying. Trust me, I’m trying!’
    Sarah could hear shouting in the kitchen. She tried to decipher what they were saying, but the walls were too thick. ‘Can you make any of that out?’
    ‘I can make
all
of it out,’ Garcia said. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t speak Russian so I don’t know what they’re saying.’
    ‘Don’t you have software for that?’
    ‘I can only do so much at once!’
    ‘Fine,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Then I’ll find a way out myself.’
    ‘The kitchen is not an option,’ he assured her. ‘There’s so much activity up there, I can’t even get an accurate count. You’ll have to find another way.’
    ‘What about back through the vault? Maybe a ventilation shaft?’
    ‘You know the schematics as well as I do,’ Garcia said. ‘It’s an old house, but they refitted the basement with modern ventilation a few years back. There’s no way you’re fitting through a three-inch exhaust.’
    ‘Maybe I won’t have to,’ she said as her mind whirred through a list of possibilities. She had studied enough floor plans and security systems in her life to recognize the details that most people would miss. ‘I think I found another way.’
    Sarah studied the column in the center of the room and slid open a wooden panel in the front. She had glanced at it earlier and had quickly dismissed it as part of the cooling system, but then she remembered that this house had been built decades earlier. In order to feed the occupants and their staff, several pounds of meat and vegetables were cooked daily. The intense, continuous heat of the cooking fires would have made the kitchen unbearable, so the ovens had been relegated to the basement. Rather than make the staff carry the food up several flights of stairs, the architect came up with an alternative.
    ‘You aren’t going to believe this,’ she said as she shined her flashlight up the elevator shaft. ‘This house has a dumb waiter.’
    ‘To where?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said as she climbed inside the shaft and closed the door behind her. ‘I’ll let you know when I get there.’

6

    Agent Callahan was a block away from the surveillance van when he used his cell phone to call his partner. ‘Are you seeing this?’
    Koontz stayed focused on the monitor in front of him. ‘Of course I’m seeing this. The Angels have the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. One hit and the Yankees can suck it!’
    ‘You’re watching the Yankees?’
    ‘Of course I’m watching the Yankees. We get great reception with our satellite. Why do you think I wanted you out of the van?’
    Callahan fumed. ‘You’re such an idiot! We finally see some action, and you’re jerking off instead of taking pictures?’
    ‘Action? What action?’
    ‘Look out the damn window!’
    Koontz did as he was told and was stunned by the sight. Guards poured from the surrounding homes like a flood, filling the streets with crew cuts and guns. ‘Holy shit! What the hell happened? Did someone find the
Red October
?’
    ‘I don’t know what happened. I was hoping you could tell me!’
    ‘Heck if I know,’ Koontz admitted. Instead of monitoring local chatter, he had been listening to the audio feed of the baseball game. ‘Give me a minute, and I’ll check the tape.’
    ‘Screw the tape! Check the live feed from the house.’
    Despite his lackadaisical demeanor, Koontz was actually a talented field agent, one who knew Russian, Ukrainian, and several other languages. It was that skill more than any other that had led to this particular assignment. He could eavesdrop on any conversation in Brighton Beach and figure out what was being said.
    Koontz listened and translated for his partner. ‘They found a body in the kitchen. A big fucker named Boris. He was just lying in the middle of the floor.’
    ‘A body? As in, someone died?’
    The news excited Callahan. A dead body, no matter who it was, would give them cause to knock down the door. Not only that,