Bear Grylls - Ghost Flight

But then he noticed that each of the threads formed part of a larger complex of geometric patterns, spiralling in towards a dark mass crouched at the very centre.

Spiders.

Why were there always spiders?

‘The Phoneutria is also called “the wandering spider”,’ Narov’s voice cut in via the radio intercom. ‘They get everywhere. Be watchful.’

She moved ahead of him with her knife drawn.

Bitten once by a Phoneutria , she seemed to show no fear, slashing expertly at the webs, collapsing them before her to clear a path through. As she pirouetted from side to side, slicing at the silken threads and flicking the bodies of the spiders away, she moved with the slender grace of a ballet dancer.

It was captivating. Jaeger traced her progress, noting her raw courage. She really was as unique – as dangerous? – as the Phoneutria she was so expertly outmanoeuvring.

He followed the path she cut, feeling for any trip wires set at just above floor level. His eye was drawn to a massive crate lying to his immediate front. It was so large, he’d have to squeeze past so as to continue down the warplane. For a moment he wondered how they’d manhandled it onto the aircraft. He could only imagine they had used heavy vehicles to do so, driving the crate up the warplane’s rear ramp.

As he studied it, Jaeger’s torch caught the lettering stamped on its side.

Kriegsentscheidend: Aktion Adlerflug

SS Standortwechsel Kommando

Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft

Uranprojekt – Uranmaschine

Below that was the unmistakably dark form of… a Reichsadler .

Some of the words – plus the symbol – were instantly recognisable to Jaeger, but it was Narov who would add the missing links. She knelt before the crate, tracing the words in the light thrown by her own head torch.

‘So, this is hardly surprising…’ she began.

Jaeger crouched beside her. ‘Some of the words I know,’ he remarked. ‘ Kriegsentscheidend : beyond top secret. SS Standortwechsel Kommando : the Relocation Commando of the SS. What about the others?’

Narov read and interpreted the words, Jaeger’s head torch glinting off the glass lens of her mask. ‘ Aktion Adlerflug – Operation Eagle Flight. Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft – the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the Nazis’ top nuclear research facility. Uranprojekt – the nuclear weapons project of the Reich. Uranmaschine – nuclear reactor.’

She turned to Jaeger. ‘Components of their nuclear programme. The Nazis had experimented with nuclear power and how it could be harnessed for weaponry in ways that we had never even imagined.’

Narov moved across to a second crate, tracing similar lines of lettering, plus a second Reichsadler .

Kriegsentscheidend: Aktion Adlerflug

SS Standortwechsel Kommando

Mittelwerk Kohnstein

A9 Amerika Rakete

‘So the top two lines are the same. Below that: Mittelwerk was an underground complex tunnelled into the Kohnstein mountains, right in the very heart of Germany. It was where Hitler tasked Hans Kammler to relocate the Nazi’s top rocketry and missiles, after their Peenemunde research centre was bombed by the Allies.

‘During winter 1944 and spring 1945, twenty thousand forced labourers from the nearby Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp died building Mittelwerk – from exhaustion, starvation and disease. They were worked to death, or were executed when they were too weak to serve any further useful purpose.’

Narov gestured at the crate. ‘As you can see, not all of the evil from Mittelwerk perished with the end of the war.’

Jaeger traced the last line of lettering. ‘What’s the A9?’

‘Sequel to the V-2. The Amerika Rakete – the America Skyrocket; designed to fly at over three thousand mph and to hit the American mainland. By war’s end they had working wind-tunnel versions and they had even had successful test flights. Obviously they did not want the A9 to die with the Reich.’

Jaeger could tell that Narov knew so much more than she was letting on. It had been like this from the very start of the expedition. And now they’d made a series of mind-blowing discoveries – a secret German warplane decked out in American colours, lost for decades in the Amazon and stuffed full of what, by anyone’s reckoning, was a cargo of Nazi horrors.

Yet nothing seemed to come as the least shock or surprise to Irina Narov.

They probed further into the darkness.

The heat inside the fuselage was stifling, the discomfort tripled by the cumbersome suit and mask, but Jaeger didn’t doubt that the NBC kit was proving an absolute lifesaver. Whatever toxic fumes filled the aircraft, should either he, Narov or Dale have tried to enter without such protection, they would be in a whole world of hurt right now, of that he felt certain.

For an instant, he turned to check on Dale.

He found the cameraman attaching a portable battery-operated lamp to the top of his camera. He flicked it on – light by which to film – and the interior of the warplane was cast into stark, knife-cut light and shadow.

From every corner stared horrible, glowing twin pinpricks of light: Phoneutria eyes.

Jaeger was half expecting the ghosts of whoever had crewed this warplane to be woken by the glaring light and to step from the shadows, Luger pistols raised to defend their darkest mysteries to the last.

It seemed almost inconceivable that the aircraft could have been so utterly abandoned, complete with all its hidden secrets.

Narov crouched before a third crate, and almost instantly Jaeger sensed the change in her demeanour. As she traced the lettering, she let out a strangled gasp, and Jaeger figured that here at least was an element even she hadn’t quite been expecting.

He bent to read the words stamped on the crate’s side.

Kriegsentscheidend: Aktion Adlerflug

SS Standortwechsel Kommando

Plasmaphysik – Dresden

Röntgen Kanone

‘This we did not expect,’ Narov muttered. She glanced at Jaeger. ‘Every line is obvious, but the last? You understand line three?’

Jaeger nodded. ‘Plasma Physics – Dresden.’

‘Exactly,’ Narov confirmed. ‘As to the Röntgen Kanone , there is no direct translation into English. You might call it a death-ray or direct energy weapon. It fires a particle beam, or electromagnetic radiation, or even sound waves. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but the Nazis were long rumoured to have had such a weapon, and to have used it to down Allied aircraft.’

Narov’s gaze met Jaeger’s through the eyepiece of her mask. ‘It seems as if it is true, and that they held on to their Röntgen Kanone until the very last.’

Jaeger could feel the sweat pouring down his face. The heat was building to intolerable levels, and the perspiration was starting to condense inside his mask, blurring his vision. He figured they should head for the rear and try to open one of the side doors, which lay just aft of the tailplane.

As they fought their way through, Narov pointed out further crates packed with an array of staggeringly advanced weaponry. ‘The BV 246 gliding bomb. It had a two-hundred-kilometre range, and it would home on to the target’s radar signal… The Fritz-X guided bomb, with a heat-seeking or radar/radio homing warhead. Basically, these are the forerunners of our modern-day smart bombs.’

She bent beside a row of long, low crates. ‘The Rheintochter R1 – a surface-to-air guided missile for shooting down Allied bombers… The X4 – an air-to-air missile, guided to the target by the pilot. The Feuerlilie – the Fire Lily – a guided anti-aircraft rocket…’