Bear Grylls - Ghost Flight

Boerke pulled a faded cardboard file off a nearby shelf. It was stuffed full of a thick wad of documents. He placed it on the table before them.

‘This,’ he tapped the file, ‘trust me, man, it was worth flying halfway around the world for.’

He waved one hand at the shelves that lined the room. ‘Not much of this is even worth keeping: Equatorial Guinea hardly has a wealth of state secrets. But it seems the island did play a role during the war… and towards the end, let me tell you, it was something close to mind-blowing.’

Boerke paused. ‘Okay, some history, most of which I presume you know, but without which the contents of this file will not make a great deal of sense. Back then Bioko was a Spanish colony called Fernando Po. Spain was, in theory, neutral during the war, and so was Fernando Po. In practice, the Spanish government was basically fascist and an ally of the Nazis.

‘The harbour here dominates the Gulf of Guinea,’ Boerke continued. ‘Control of this stretch of ocean was key to winning the war in North Africa, ’cause all the resupply convoys came via this route. German U-boats prowled these waters, and they came very close to shutting down Allied shipping. Santa Isabel harbour – it was their secret U-boat rearming and refuelling centre, one sanctioned by the island’s Spanish governor, who hated the British.

‘In early March 1945, things really started to get interesting.’ Boerke’s eyes glistened. ‘An Italian cargo ship, the SS Michelangelo , docked at the harbour, and duly attracted the attention of the British spies based here. There were three, stationed at the British consulate under cover of being diplomats. Each was a serving agent with the Special Operations Executive.’

He glanced at Jaeger. ‘I take it you know of the SOE? Ian Fleming is said to have based his James Bond character on a real-life SOE agent.’

He flipped open the file and pulled out an old black-and-white photograph. It showed a large steamship, one massive funnel set vertically amidships. ‘That’s the Michelangelo . But notice – she’s painted in the colours of Compania Naviera Levantina, a Spanish shipping company.

‘Compania Naviera Levantina was set up by one Martin Bormann,’ Boerke continued, ‘a man better known as Hitler’s banker. It had one purpose only – to ship the Nazis’ loot to the four corners of the earth, under the flag of a neutral country, Spain. Bormann vanished at the end of the war. Utterly. He was never found.

‘Bormann’s key role was to oversee the plunder of Europe. The Nazis carted back to Germany all the gold, cash and artwork they could rob and steal. By the end of the war, Hitler had become the wealthiest man in all of Europe – possibly even the world. And he had amassed the greatest art collection ever known.

‘Bormann’s job was to ensure that all that wealth didn’t die with the Reich.’ Boerke slapped a hand on the file. ‘And apparently, Fernando Po became the transit point for much of the Nazis’ loot. Between January and March 1945, five further shipments came through Santa Isabel harbour, each stuffed full of booty. It was transferred on to U-boats for onwards transportation, and there the trail seems to go cold.

‘That trail was documented by the SOE agents in great detail,’ Boerke continued. ‘But you know the weirdest thing: the Allies seem to have done nothing to stop the Nazis. Publicly, they made out they were about to raid those ships. Privately, they did zero to stop them.

‘The SOE agents – they were low on the feeding chain. They couldn’t understand why those shipments were never stopped. And it didn’t seem to make a great deal of sense to me, either – not until you get to the last few pages of the file. It’s then that we come to the Duchessa .’

Boerke produced another photo from the file. ‘There she is – the Duchessa . But notice the difference between her and the previous vessels. She’s decked out in Compania Naviera Levantina colours again, but she’s actually a cargo liner. She’s designed to carry people as well as goods. Why send a passenger liner if your cargo consists mostly of priceless artwork and gold looted from across Europe?’

Boerke eyed Jaeger. ‘I tell you why: because mostly she was carrying passengers.’ He flipped a sheet of paper across the table. ‘The seventh page of the Duchessa ’s shipping manifest. It contains a list of two dozen passengers, but each is identified only by a series of numbers. No names. Which is not enough to have made you fly all the way out to Bioko for, eh, my friend?

‘Luckily, your SOE agents were very resourceful.’ He pulled out a final photo and slipped it across to Jaeger. ‘I don’t know how familiar you are with the top-flight Nazis from the spring of 1945. This was taken on a long lens, presumably from the window of the British consulate, which overlooks the harbour.

‘Don’t you just love those uniforms?’ Boerke demanded sarcastically. ‘The long leather coats? The thigh-length leather boots? The death’s heads?’ He ran his hand through his thick beard. ‘Trouble is, dressed like that, they all look the bloody same. But these guys – they’re top-tier Nazis for sure. Got to be. And if you can crack whatever code the names are listed in, that will prove it.’

‘So where the hell did they go from here?’ Jaeger asked incredulously.

In answer, Boerke flipped the photos over. ‘It’s date-stamped on the reverse: the ninth of May 1945 – two days after the Nazis signed their unconditional surrender with the Allies. But that’s when the trail goes cold. Or maybe that’s also detailed somewhere in the code. Man, I spent a month of Sundays studying this file. By the time I’d realised what it was – piecing together all it meant – it had scared the living daylights out of me.’

He shook his head. ‘If it’s all true – and no way is a file sat in this vault a fake – it rewrites everything we ever thought we knew. The entirety of post-war history. It is literally mind-blowing. I have been trying not to think about it. You know why? Because it scares the shit out of me. People like that don’t tend to go quietly and start farming.’

Jaeger stared at the photo for a long second. ‘But if it is an SOE file, how come it ended up in the hands of the Spanish governor of Fernando Po?’

Boerke laughed. ‘Now that’s the funny part. The governor figured out the so-called British diplomats were actually spies. So he decided – what the hell? He staged a break-in at the consulate and stole all their files. Not exactly cricket, but putting spies on his island posing as diplomats wasn’t exactly cricket either.

‘You know that old saying: beware of what you wish for?’ Boerke pushed the entire file across to Jaeger.

‘My friend – you asked for it. It’s all yours.’

Boerke wasn’t one for overdramatising things.

The file from the Bioko Government House archive was as shocking as it was revelatory. And as Jaeger packed it into his carry-on flight luggage, he was reminded of a phrase that Narov had used recently: ‘poisoned chalice’.

The bag with the file in it seemed to weigh so heavily in his hands. It was another clue to the puzzle, and doubtless one the Dark Force would kill for.

Jaeger rejoined Boerke with his luggage. The South African had offered him a tour of the island before he was scheduled to catch a return flight to London. He’d promised further extraordinary revelations, not that Jaeger could imagine what would possibly top the Government House file.

They drove east out of Malabo, heading into the thick tropical bush. By the time Boerke had turned on to the tiny dirt track threading towards the coast, Jaeger knew where they were going. They were making for Fernao, the place where he had spent three long years teaching English to the children of a fishing village.