A Quiet Hunt - A Bertram Hauser Story

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The car was set to cruise control so Bertram could synthesise a complex chemical compound with his portable lab. He opened up the thick, rectangular box and set the computer to the simple task of creating samples of a non-lipid molecule associated with prey snakes of cobras. The molecule was the only known snake pheromone, used by females to tell males they were not in the market for their advances. It should not take too much adjustment to attach a few chemicals and lethally reverse this message…

He saw her last in June, walking her dog on Oxford’s South Park. Bertram had been tailing someone but forgot himself completely when she crossed his path. Her heart-shaped face transformed from subtly attractive to utterly compelling when she smiled; raven hair lifted every now and then by an unobtrusive breeze, never interrupting his view of those soft brown eyes. She was perhaps the only woman who could make sensible shoes look good.

        Whatever they actually spoke about is hazy. Mentions of their respective places of work received caginess from both of them, so instead they talked about her dog, the weather, and a dozen trivial things like how American television was back with a broadcasting vengeance. He bid her goodbye with a huge, incongruous grin.

Three long beeps and a click meant three test tubes of a synthetic “kill signal” pheromone were ready to be transferred into an aerosol dispenser; a compound engineered in ten minutes. Ms R. would depart for Sittwe in 90 minutes. In a few moments he would arrive in Cox’s Bazaar after half an hour in the air. Thank Providence for the joys of modernity.

        “Helen, activate interface,” he ordered his device to open using its artificial intelligence’s name and the display activated, “Trawl all unofficial, encrypted communications channels in a fifty mile radius.” The car stopped. It was now a dark shape hovering ominously on the edge of town.

        Helen spoke crisp, clear RP: “Sir, only one channel was beyond my capabilities. I shall forward the location to on-board navigation.”

        “Thank you, Helen.”

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He had put down his car 40 minutes away from a riverside bungalow and trekked the rest of the way there. The spy hunter retrieved binoculars from inside his coat and unfolded them; they had an integrated infrared illuminator so low light wasn’t an issue. He could pick out four figures in the tall grass, smugglers hired to protect Ms R.

        He crouched and sprinted silently through the field, sliding away the binoculars in favour of a 30cm cheese wire. Bertie moved quickly into place behind the nearest smuggler, sprang up and pulled the wire taught around the man’s neck. A grim gurgle escaped a sliced throat, blood spurted and then dribbled – Hauser carefully lowered him to the ground.

        One of the smugglers noticed their ally’s absence about ten seconds later, and Bertie noticed him noticing. He circled around behind the approaching smuggler and introduced him to the same fate as his friend. Another smuggler was stationed right in front of the door and the last was in this one’s line of sight. Bertie took out his suppressed pistol, stood up and aimed at the smuggler by the door. A loud click and a bullet passed through the man’s head, and left in a shower of bone, blood and bits of brain. The final smuggler swung around, Hauser planted a bullet between his eyes and another in his heart.

        On his walk to the bungalow’s entrance, he sprayed the pheromone behind him and dumped the contents of the aerosol not far from the front door. When his hand closed on the door handle he found it unlocked.

        She paced around a bare room, as beautiful as ever in an ugly khaki shirt and boot-cut jeans. Bertie called out, “Abigail.”

        Abigail turned to him, “Bertram.”

        “You have to come with me. Back to England, back to the valuable work you’re doing, back to…” he tried to say it.

        “To...?” for a moment it seemed like she might stay. The air hummed with an unspoken thing. Bertie could not bring himself to speak again, she sighed, “I can’t go with you Bertram, you know that.” She fiddled with the folder in her hands and walked up to Bertram. Abigail kissed him delicately on the cheek. He was motionless. She walked past him and into the tall grass beyond.

        He waited for the inevitable. There would be at least a dozen cobras out there in the dark, riled by the pheromone. Abigail was not a survivalist; she would be surprised by one in the tall grass and move too fast or…there was a scream, and another, and another. Silence.

        Bertram took out that clipped cigar and lit it.

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Tonton rang the next morning, before breakfast, “International papers are saying that smuggling gangs had a tiff resulting in some brutal murders; also, in some local London rag there’s this tragic story about Dr Abigail Brice, bitten by a cobra on holiday. Terrible business, Bertie, but they all have a choice.

        “Not always. We have our principles, she had hers,” Bertie closed the call, put down his watch and picked up the green tea on his bedside table.