Ghost Flight (10 page)

‘Make no mistake, my boy, I’ve never spoken about this before. Not even to Ethel.’ The old man took a moment to collect himself. ‘Target Force was one of the most secretive units ever formed. That’s why you’ve doubtless never heard of us. We had a very specific mission. We were charged to hunt down the Nazis’ foremost secrets: their war technology; their
Wunderwaffe –
their extraordinarily advanced war machines; plus their top scientists.’

Now that the old man had started, he didn’t seem to want to stop. The words tumbled from his lips, as if he was desperate to unburden himself of the memories; the secrets.

‘We were to find the
Wunderwaffe
ahead of the Russians, who were – even then – seen as the new enemy. We were given a “black list” of key sites: factories, laboratories, testing grounds, wind tunnels, plus the scientists and foremost experts, that were not at any cost to fall into Russian hands. The Russians were advancing from the east; it was a race against time. One that we largely won.’

‘That’s how he came upon the document?’ Jaeger queried. He hadn’t been able to resist posing the question. ‘The Operation Werewolf report?’

‘It’s not a report,’ Great Uncle Joe murmured. ‘It’s an operational plan. And no, actually. A document of that level of secrecy – deniable; emanating from the deep black – that was way beyond even our remit; beyond even Target Force.’

‘So where—’ Jaeger began.

The old man waved him into silence again. ‘Your grandfather was a fine soldier: fearless, intelligent, morally incorruptible. During his time with T Force he realised something so shocking, so utterly dark, that he rarely spoke of it. There was an operation beyond T Force: one formed in the deniable, black world. Its mission was to spirit away the most high-profile and undesirable Nazis – the absolute untouchables – to places where we could still profit from them.

‘Needless to say, your grandfather was appalled when he learned of it. Horrified.’ Great Uncle Joe paused. ‘Most of all, he knew how wrong it was. How it would corrupt us all if we brought the worst of the evil into our living rooms. He believed
all
the Nazi war criminals should stand trial at Nuremberg . . . But now we move into realms wherein he swore me to absolute secrecy.’ He cast a momentary glance at Jaeger. ‘Am I to break my word?’

Jaeger placed a comforting hand on the old man’s arm. ‘Uncle Joe, what you’ve told me already – it’s far more than I ever
knew, or hoped to know.’

Great Uncle Joe patted his hand in return. ‘My boy, I appreciate your patience, your understanding. This . . . this is far from easy . . . At war’s end your grandfather re-joined the SAS. Or rather, there was no SAS by then. Officially it was disbanded immediately after the war. Unofficially, Winston Churchill – the greatest leader a country could ever have wished for – kept the unit alive, and thank God that he did.

‘The SAS had always been Churchill’s baby,’ he continued. ‘After the war he ran the unit secretly, completely off the books and from a hotel in central London. They set up clandestine bases all across Europe. Their aim was to wipe out those Nazis who had escaped the dragnet; to hunt them down, especially those who were responsible for such terrible abuses during the war.

‘You’ll perhaps have heard of Hitler’s
Sonderbehandlung
– his Commando Order? It decreed that all captured Allied special forces should be handed over to the SS for special treatment – in other words, torture and execution. Hundreds disappeared into what the Nazis called the
Nacht und Nebel
– the night and fog.’

Great Uncle Joe paused for a moment, the effort of reaching so far into the darkness proving an exhausting one.

‘Churchill’s secret SAS set about hunting down those Nazis still at large. All of them – no matter what their level of seniority. The
Sonderbehandlung
came direct from Hitler himself. The very top people in the Nazi regime were right in your grandfather’s sights, and that put him in direct conflict with the people tasked to spirit those selfsame men to safety.’

‘So we were fighting against ourselves?’ Jaeger queried. ‘One part trying to finish off the very worst of the evil, the other trying to safeguard them?’

‘Quite possibly,’ the old man confirmed. ‘Quite possibly we were.’

‘How long did this go on for?’ Jaeger queried. ‘Grandpa Ted’s – Churchill’s – secret war?’

‘With your grandfather, I don’t think it ever stopped. Not until the day he was . . . he died.’

‘So all that Nazi memorabilia,’ Jaeger ventured. ‘The SS Death’s Heads; the Werewolf insignia – he acquired it in the course of the hunt?’

Uncle Joe nodded. ‘He did. Trophies, if you like. Each speaking of a dark memory, of an evil snuffed out, just as all should have been.’

‘And the Operation Werewolf document?’ Jaeger prompted. ‘He came across that in the same way?’

‘Possibly. Probably. I really can’t say.’ The old man shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘I know precious little about it. And needless to say, I didn’t know your grandfather had kept a copy. Or that it had passed to you. I’ve only ever heard mention of it once or twice, and then only in whispers. Your grandfather – he doubtless knew more. But he took his deepest, darkest secrets to the grave. An early grave, at that.’

‘And the
Reichsadler
?’ Jaeger ventured. ‘What does that signify? What does it stand for?’

Great Uncle Joe stared at Jaeger for a long moment. ‘That
thing
on your phone – that’s no ordinary
Reichsadler.
The standard Nazi
eagle
sits above a
swastika
.
’ The old man glanced again at Jaeger’s phone. ‘That
–
it’s markedly different
.
It’s the circular symbol below the eagle’s tail that you need to pay special attention to.’ The old man shuddered. ‘Only one . . . organisation has ever used such a symbol, and it did so
after
the war, when the world was supposedly at peace and Nazism dead and buried . . .’

It was warm in the study, the heat from the wood-burner in the kitchen drifting through and keeping it toasty, but even so, Jaeger detected a dark chill that had crept into the room.

Great Uncle Joe sighed, a haunted expression etched across his eyes.
‘
Needless to say, I haven’t seen one in, well, close to seventy years. And I’ve been happy not to.’ He paused. ‘There. Now I worry that I’ve gone too far. If I have, your grandfather and the others – they must forgive me.’

He paused. ‘There is one other thing I feel compelled to ask: do you know how your grandfather died? It’s part of the reason I moved up here. I couldn’t bear to be around the area where we had been so happy as children.’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘Only that it was unexpected. Untimely. I was only seventeen – too young for anyone to tell me much.’

‘They were right not to tell you.’ The old man paused, turning the SAS cap badge over and over in his frail hands. ‘He was seventy-nine years of age. As fit as a fiddle. Feisty as ever, of course. They say it was suicide. A hosepipe through the car window. The engine left running. Poisoned by the exhaust fumes. Overburdened by traumatic memories of the war. What complete and utter rubbish!’

Bitter anger was burning in Uncle Joe’s eyes now. ‘Remind you of anything? Hosepipe through the car window? I’m sure it does! He wasn’t of course a
Lebensunwertes Leben
– one of the disabled; one of the Nazis’ “life unworthy of life”.’

He glanced at Jaeger despairingly. ‘But what better way for them to take their revenge?’

Jaeger gunned the bike, the powerful 1200 cc engine howling with the throaty soundtrack of a Triumph at speed on a deserted, night-dark highway. Yet as he headed south on the M6, he was feeling far from triumphant. Indeed, his visit to Great Uncle Joe had left him reeling.

It was the old man’s final revelation that had really hit him.

Grandfather Ted had been found dead in his fume-filled car, apparently having suffocated to death from the exhaust fumes.
The police had argued that self-harm and suicide were most likely the cause of death. Chillingly, a distinctive image had been carved into his left shoulder: a
Reichsadler.

The parallels with Andy Smith’s death were unnerving.

Jaeger had left it as long as he could before leaving the cabin. He’d helped Ethel in from the snow. Shared a supper of smoked kippers with the two of them. Seen them both to bed, his great uncle seemingly more exhausted and troubled than Jaeger had ever known him. And then he’d made his excuses and hit the road.

He’d promised Raff, Feaney and Carson a decision in person, within forty-eight hours. The clock was ticking, especially as he had one last stop-off to make on the long journey back to London.

He’d left the cabin deep in the snowy woods hoping that in their isolation, Joe and Ethel were at least safe. But for the whole of the long drive south, Jaeger felt as if the ghosts of the past were chasing him through the darkness.

Hunting him through the
Nacht und Nebel
– the night and the fog.

15

‘Feast your eyes on those!’ Adam Carson tossed a sheaf of aerial photos on to the desk.

Clean-cut, square-jawed, razor-sharp, slick, a gifted orator – Carson had been born one of life’s winners. Jaeger didn’t particularly like him. He’d respected him as a military commander. But did he trust him? He’d never really been sure either way.

‘The Cordillera de los Dios: the Mountains of the Gods,’ Carson continued. ‘An area almost the size of Wales – totally unexplored jungle. Ringed by massive peaks – fifteen, sixteen thousand feet – and shrouded in mist and rain. You’ve got savage tribes, waterfalls as high as cathedrals, caves that run for miles and miles, plus plunging ravines and perilous river gorges. Probably a herd of
Tyrannosaurus rex
, to boot. In short, it’s a veritable Lost World.’

Jaeger studied the images, flicking through them one by one. ‘Sure looks a long way from Soho Square.’

‘Doesn’t it.’ Carson shoved a second set of aerial photos in Jaeger’s direction. ‘And if you’ve any residual doubts, take a look at those. Isn’t she a beauty? A mysterious, dark, sensual beauty of a beast. A siren of the air, calling to us from across two thousand miles of jungle, not to mention all the years.’

Jaeger eyed the images. The mystery air wreck sat among a sea of emerald green, being all the more noticeable in that the forest in her immediate vicinity was bleached white as snow. Dead. Leafless branches reaching skywards like myriad skeletal fingers, the carcass of the jungle picked clean and laid bare.

‘Forest of bones,’ Jaeger muttered, indicating the area of dieback all around the mystery aircraft. ‘Any idea what did that?’

‘None.’ Carson smiled. ‘Must be something pretty toxic, but there are any number of potential candidates. You’ll be taking NBC suits, plus respirators, obviously. You’ll need proper protection – that’s if you
are
going.’

Jaeger ignored the dig. He knew that everyone was waiting on his answer. The forty-eight hours were up. That was why they’d gathered here at Wild Dog Media’s plush Soho offices – Adam Carson, a handful of TV executives, plus the Enduro Adventures team.

Apparently, anyone who was anyone in TV had to have a base in Soho, a glitzy slice of central London where the great and the good of the media seemed to gather. Carson, typically, had gone for gold, hiring a suite of offices in Soho Square itself.

‘The aircraft looks remarkably intact,’ Jaeger pointed out. ‘Almost as if she
landed
there. Do we have any idea where she was flying to and from, and in what year?’

Carson slid across a third set of photos. ‘Close-ups on her markings. You’ll see they’re badly weathered, but it appears she was decked out in US Air Force colours. Suffering that kind of weathering, she’s clearly been lying there for decades . . . Everyone suspects she’s Second World War-era. But if she is, she’s utterly unique: a phenomenon, decades ahead of her time.

‘Compare her to a C-130 Hercules.’ Carson glanced at the TV execs. ‘The C-130’s a modern transport aircraft used by most NATO forces. Our mystery aircraft is a hundred and twelve feet nose to tail, as opposed to a C-130’s forty feet – so that makes her
three times as long
. Plus she’s got six engines, as opposed to four, and a far wider wingspan.’

‘So she’d carry a far heavier payload?’ Jaeger queried.

‘She would,’ Carson confirmed. ‘The only vaguely comparable Allied Second World War plane is the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, of the type that dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But this aircraft’s shape is utterly different – far more aerodynamic and streamlined – plus the B-29 was about half her size. And that pretty much sums up the enigma: what the devil is she?’

Carson’s smile grew wider; more confident, almost cocky. ‘She’s been dubbed “The Last Great Mystery of World War Two”. And indeed she is.’ He was in full-blooded salesman speak now, playing to his audience. ‘So all we need is the right man to lead the mission.’ He glanced at Jaeger. ‘Are you up for it? Are you on?’

Jaeger did a quick scan of the faces gathered around him. Carson: uber-confident that he’d got his man. Raff: inscrutable as ever. Feaney: face tinged with worry, Enduro Adventures fortunes very much hanging in the balance. Plus the assorted TV execs. Early thirties; sloppily –
trendily
? – dressed; looking anxious – their TV extravaganza resting on a knife edge.

And then there was Mr Simon Jenkinson, the archivist. In his late fifties, he was by far the oldest in the pack, his demeanour like a hibernating honey bear, all salty beard, jam-jar glasses, and moth-eaten tweedy jacket, his dreamy head stuck very much in the clouds.

‘And you, Mr Jenkinson,’ Jaeger prompted. ‘I understand you’re the expert in the room? You’re a member of LAAST – the Lost Aircraft Archaeological Society Trust – as well as being an expert on all things Second World War? Shouldn’t we hear what you think she might be?’

‘Who? Me?’ The archivist glanced around as if waking from a long sleep. His whiskers twitched worriedly. ‘Me? Hear from me? Probably not. I’m not good at group discussions.’