Bear Grylls - Ghost Flight

‘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.

‘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.