Bear Grylls - Ghost Flight

‘If we vote for option three – to continue – you’ll get the coordinates once we’re on the river,’ Jaeger told him. ‘That’s the deal I cut with Colonel Evandro: once we start our journey down the Rio de los Dios.’

‘So how did you manage to lose Narov?’ Kral probed. ‘What exactly happened?’

Jaeger stared. ‘I’ve already explained how Narov died.’

‘I’d like to hear it again,’ Kral pressed, the lopsided smile creeping further across his features. ‘Just, you know, to deconflict things. Just so we’re all clear.’

Jaeger was haunted by Narov’s loss, and he wasn’t about to relive it all again. ‘It was a God-awful mess that went ugly fast. And trust me – there was nothing I could do to save her.’

‘What makes you so convinced she’s dead?’ Kral continued mulishly. ‘And not so with James, Santos and the others?’

Jaeger’s eyes narrowed. ‘You had to be there,’ he remarked quietly.

‘But surely there was something you could have done? It was day one, you were crossing the river…’

‘You want me to shoot him now?’ Alonzo cut in, his voice rumbling a warning. ‘Or later, after we cut out his tongue?’

Jaeger stared at Kral. A distinct edge of menace crept into his tone. ‘It’s a funny thing, Mr Kral: I get the impression you’re interviewing me here. You’re not, are you? Interviewing me?’

Kral shook his head nervously. ‘I’m just airing a few issues. Just trying to deconflict things.’

Jaeger glanced from Kral to Dale. The latter’s camera was lying beside him on the ground. His hand crept towards it, furtively.

‘You know what, guys,’ Jaeger rasped, ‘I got something myself that needs deconflicting .’ He eyed the camera. ‘You’ve taped over the red filming light with black gaffer tape. You’ve set it on the ground, lens facing my way, and I presume it was already filming before you put it down.’

He lifted his eyes to Dale, who seemed to quake visibly under his gaze. ‘I’ll say this one time. Once only. You pull a trick like this again, I’ll ram that camera so far up your backside you’ll be able to clean the lens as if it were your teeth. Are – we – clear?’

Dale shrugged. ‘Yeah. I guess. Only—’

‘Only nothing,’ Jaeger cut him off. ‘And when we’re done here, you’re going to wipe everything you’ve filmed from the tapes, with me watching.’

‘But if I can’t film key scenes like this, we’ve got no show,’ Dale objected. ‘The commissioners – the TV execs—’

Jaeger’s look was enough to silence him. ‘There’s something you need to understand: right now, I do not give a damn about your TV execs. Right now, there’s only one thing I care for – which is getting the maximum number of my team through this alive. And right now, we’re five – six – down, so I’m on the back foot and sliding.

‘And that makes me dangerous,’ Jaeger continued. ‘It makes me mad.’ He stabbed a finger at the camera. ‘And when I get mad, stuff tends to get broken. Now, Mr Dale: turn – it – the hell – off.’

Dale reached for the camera, hit a couple of buttons and powered down. He’d been caught red-handed, but from his sulky demeanour you’d have thought he was the one who had been wronged.

‘You get me to ask a load of idiot questions,’ Kral muttered at Dale, half under his breath. ‘Another of your dumb-ass ideas.’

Jaeger had met guys like Dale and Kral before. A few of his elite forces mates had tried to make it in their world – the world of the out-there, reality-show TV media. They’d found out too late how ruthless it could be. It chewed people up and spat them out again, like dried husks. And honour and loyalty were a rare commodity.

It was a cut-throat business. Guys like Dale and Kral – not to mention their boss, Carson – had to be driven to make it, often to the detriment of all others. It was a world wherein you had to be prepared to film people making life-or-death decisions when you had promised not to – because it went with the territory; that was what it took to get the story.

You had to be ready to put the knife into your fellow cameraman’s back, if that might advance your own fortunes a little. Jaeger hated the ethos, and that was in large part what had made him so unreceptive to the media team from the get-go.

He added Kral and Dale to the list of things he’d have to keep a close watch on here – along with toxic spiders, giant caimans, savage tribes, and now an unidentified force of gunmen seemingly intent on delivering bloody violence.

‘Okay, so – with the camera turned well and truly off – let’s move to a vote,’ he announced. ‘Option one: we pull out and abandon the expedition. All in favour?’

Every hand remained down.

That was a relief: at least they weren’t about to turn tail and run from the Serra de los Dios any time soon.

‘Mind if I film?’ Dale gestured at Jaeger.

Jaeger was crouched by the water’s edge doing his evening ablutions – his shotgun propped to one side, just in case of trouble.

He spat into the water. ‘You’re persistent, I’ll give you that. Expedition leader cleans his teeth. Gripping stuff.’

‘No, really. I need to capture some of this stuff. Background colour. Just to establish how life goes on amongst…’ He waved a hand at the river and surrounding jungle. ‘Amongst all of this.’

Jaeger shrugged. ‘Be my guest. Highlight coming up: I’m about to wash my stinking face.’

Dale proceeded to take a few shots covering Jaeger’s attempts to use the Rio de los Dios as his bathroom. At one point the cameraman had his boots in the water and his back to the river, filming a low-level shot, his lens thrust halfway down Jaeger’s throat.

Jaeger half hoped a five-metre caiman would come grab Dale by the balls, but no such luck.

Apart from Alonzo, who’d typically wanted to go hunting for the bad guys directly, the vote had been unanimous. Option number three – to continue with the expedition as planned – had been everyone’s choice. Jaeger had had to clear things with Carson, but a short call via a Thuraya satphone had got it sorted.

Carson had made his priorities very clear very quickly: nothing was to stand in the way of the expedition’s progress. From the get-go, everyone had known and understood the dangers. All team members had signed a legally binding disclaimer, recognising that they were going into harm’s way. The five missing people were just that: missing, until proven otherwise .

Carson had a twelve-million-dollar global TV spectacular to keep on track, and Wild Dog Media’s fortunes – not to mention those of Enduro Adventures – were very much dependent on its success. Come what may, Jaeger had to get his team to the site of that air wreck, uncover its secrets, and if possible pull the mystery warplane out of there.

If anyone got injured or died in the process, their misfortune would be overshadowed by the awesome nature of the discovery, or so Carson argued. This was, after all, the Last Great Mystery of the Second World War, he reminded Jaeger; the plane that never was; the ghost flight . Funny how rapidly Carson had made the archivist’s, Simon Jenkinson’s, phrases so completely his own.

Carson had even gone as far as trying to upbraid Jaeger for standing in the way of some of the filming – which meant that Dale must have called him to complain. Jaeger had given Carson short shrift: he was in charge of the expedition on the ground, and here in the jungle his word was law. If Carson didn’t like it, he could fly out to the Serra de los Dios and take his place.

Call to Carson done, Jaeger had placed a second – this to the Airlander. The giant airship had taken a while to fly out from the UK, but it was now moving towards its point of orbit high above them. Jaeger knew the pilot, Steve McBride, from when their paths had crossed in the military. He was a good, safe pair of hands to have at the Airlander’s controls.