Ghost Flight

by Bear Grylls

  ‘You got a hint?’ Jaeger had asked. ‘It’s a long way to fly. Plus, after the last few weeks—’

  ‘Put it this way,’ Boerke had cut in. ‘I am not a Nazi. In fact, I hate bloody Nazis. I am not the grandson of one, either. But if I were, I’d go a very long way – in fact I’d go to the ends of the earth, and maybe even have a lot of people killed – to make sure this never saw the light of day. That’s all I am willing to say. Trust me, Jaeger, you need to be here.’

  Jaeger had considered his options. He was working on the assumption that Alonzo, Kamishi and Joe James were still alive, and being guided by the surviving Indians to a place where they could rejoin the outside world. He felt pretty certain that Gwaihutiga was dead, thrown from the Black Hawk along with Stefan Kral, their seemingly traitorous cameraman.

  As for Leticia Santos, she was still missing, fate unknown. Colonel Evandro had promised to do all he could to find her, and Jaeger reckoned he and his B-SOB teams would leave no stone unturned.

  Jaeger’s ruse with getting the Airlander to jettison the Ju 390 had doubtless saved the lives of the airship’s crew, Raff included. The Black Hawk had been forced to chase after the warplane as it had accelerated into its gliding dive, leaving the Airlander to limp in to Cachimbo.

  Dale had managed to injure himself when his parachute had ploughed into the jungle canopy, and Narov had taken a shrapnel wound to the arm as the Dark Force had blasted their way into the Ju 390 cockpit. But Jaeger had managed to link up with them both on the ground and help get them moving – although it had been touch and go whether they would make it out of there.

  Typically, both Dale and Narov had claimed that they’d suffered only flesh wounds and were quite capable of surviving the onward journey. Jaeger had worried that in the hot and humid jungle, and with little chance of rest, proper nutrition or medical treatment, their injuries were at risk of turning septic.

  Still, he’d realised there was little chance of either Narov or Dale listening to his concerns – and in any case, there was precious little he could do to help right now. Either they made it out of the jungle under their own steam, or they would die.

  Jaeger had located a small stream, and they’d followed that for two days, moving only as fast as their condition allowed. Eventually the stream had led to a tributary, leading in turn to a larger river, one that turned out to be navigable. As luck would have it, Jaeger had managed to flag down a passing timber barge – one used to shunt tree trunks downriver towards the sawmills.

  A three-day river trip had followed, during which the greatest danger seemed to be Narov falling out with the drunken Brazilian captain. But only for so long.

  Once Narov and Dale were aboard ship, the infections that Jaeger had feared might take hold did, and with a vengeance. By the time their journey was over – Jaeger delivering them to Cachimbo airbase and its state-of-the-art high-security hospital via a local taxi cab – they both had raging fevers.

  They were diagnosed with septicaemia: their wounds had become infected and turned the entire circulatory system septic. In Dale’s case at least, the situation was exacerbated by acute exhaustion. They’d been rushed into intensive care, and were now getting treatment under Colonel Evandro’s careful watch and guard.

  Having got those he could out of the worst of the danger – and with little else he could do to help Leticia Santos – Jaeger had figured he could risk booking himself a flight from Brazil to Bioko. He’d made sure the colonel kept him briefed every step of the way.

  He’d promised to be back in time to bring Dale and Narov home, once they were well enough to travel. He’d got Raff to sit permanent guard outside their hospital door, as an added layer of security.

  Before leaving, Jaeger had grabbed a few moments with Narov, only recently released from the intensive care unit. He’d taken a look at the papers she’d retrieved from the Ju 390. The German was still mostly lost on him, and much of the Aktion Feuerland document proved to be written in a sequence of apparently random numbers, which Narov figured had to be code.

  Without breaking that code, there wasn’t a great deal more that she – or Jaeger – could glean from the document.

  At one point she had asked Jaeger to wheel her into the hospital garden, so she could feel the sun on her face and get some fresh air. Once they were positioned somewhere reasonably private, she had gone a little way to explaining some of what had happened over the past few days. Predictably, in order to do so she’d had to start with the Second World War.

  ‘You saw the kind of technology that was on that warplane,’ she had begun weakly. ‘By the spring of 1945, the Nazis had test-fired intercontinental ballistic missiles. They had fitted warheads with sarin nerve gas, not to mention plague and botulinum toxins. With just a handful of such weapons – one each to hit London, New York, Washington, Toronto and Moscow – the fortunes of the war might have turned completely.

  ‘Against that we had the atom bomb, but we hadn’t yet perfected that. And remember, it could only be delivered by a lumbering bomber, not by a guided missile travelling at many times the speed of sound. We had zero defence against their missiles.

  ‘The Nazis had the ultimate threat, and they offered the Allies a deal – one that would allow the Reich to relocate to chosen safe havens, complete with their highest-tech weaponry. But the Allies made a counter-offer. They said: “Okay, relocate. Take all your Wunderwaffe with you. But on one condition: you join us in the real struggle – the coming global fight against communism.”

  ‘The Allies cut a deal to sponsor the most secret relocations. They couldn’t of course have the top Nazis turning up in mainland Britain or the USA. The public wouldn’t have stood for it. They sent them instead into their own backyards – the Americans to South America; the British to the colonies – to India, Australia and South Africa, places where it was easy enough to hide them.

  ‘So a new pact was forged. An unspeakable one. The Allied–Nazi pact.’ Narov had paused, digging deep to find the strength to continue. ‘Aktion Adlerflug – Operation Eagle Flight – was Hitler’s code name for the plan to relocate the Nazis’ top technology and weaponry; hence those stamps on the crates in the Ju 390’s hold. Aktion Feuerland – Operation Fire Land – was the code name for the relocation of their top people.’

  She glanced at Jaeger with pained eyes. ‘We have never had a list of exactly who those people were. Never, in spite of all the years searching. The documents retrieved from that warplane – that’s what I hope they may yield. That, and a sense of where exactly the technology and the individuals went.’

  Jaeger had been tempted to ask why it mattered. It was seven decades ago. It was old news. But Narov must have guessed as much.

  ‘There is an old saying.’ She’d motioned him closer, her voice weakening with the exhaustion. ‘The child of a snake is still a snake. The Allies had forged a pact with the devil. The longer it was kept hidden, the more powerful and controlling it became, until it was all but unassailable. We believe it persists at all levels of the military, banking and world government – even today.’

  She must have seen the doubt clouding Jaeger’s eyes.

  ‘You think this is far-fetched?’ she had whispered defiantly. ‘Ask yourself for how long the Knights Templar legacy lasted. Nazism is less than a hundred years old; the Knights Templar legacy has lasted two thousand years, and it is still with us today. You think the Nazis just faded away overnight? You think those who were relocated to the safe havens would have allowed the Reich to die? You think their children would have abandoned what they saw as their birthright?

  ‘The Reichsadler with the strange circular symbol beneath the tail – we believe that is their symbol, their stamp. And as you well know, it has started to rear its head again.’

  For a moment Jaeger had thought she was done, the exhaustion silencing her. But then from somewhere she’d found the strength for a final few words.

  ‘William Edward Michael Jaeger, if you still have doubts
, there is one thing that should prove this for you. Think about the people who tried to stop us. They killed three of your team, and many more Indians. They had Predator, Black Hawks and God only knows what else. They were deep black and ultra-deniable. Imagine who might wield that kind of power, or act with such impunity.

  ‘The sons of the snakes are rising. They have a global network and their power grows. And as they have a network, so there is a network that aims to stop them.’ She paused, her face drained of all colour. ‘Before his death, your grandfather was the head of it. Those invited to join each get given a knife – a symbol of resistance – similar to the one that I carry.

  ‘But who wants this poisoned chalice thrust upon them? Who? The power of the enemy is on the rise, while ours – it is waning. Wir Sind die Zukunft. You have heard their motto: we are the future.’

  Her eyes had flickered across to Jaeger. ‘Those of us who hunt them – we do not normally get to live for long.’

  86

  ‘Sir, hello. Sir, a drink before we land?’ the air hostess repeated for the third time.

  Jaeger had been miles away, reliving that conversation with Narov. She hadn’t said a great deal more. The exhaustion and pain had got the better of her, and Jaeger had wheeled her back to her hospital bed.

  He flashed the hostess a smile. ‘A Bloody Mary, please. Lots of Worcestershire sauce.’

  Bioko airport hadn’t changed a great deal since Jaeger’s last visit. A new force of security and customs officers had replaced President Honore Chambara’s corrupt and venal guard, but otherwise, it looked pretty much the same. The familiar figure of Pieter Boerke was waiting at Arrivals, complete with a couple of hulking great guys Jaeger recognised as his security detail.

  Boerke had just overrun a despotic dictator, and he wasn’t one for discreet, low-level close protection. The South African held out a hand of welcome, before turning to his bodyguards. ‘Right, boys, bloody grab him! Let’s get him back into Black Beach!’

  For a moment, Jaeger tensed himself for battle, then Boerke burst into laughter. ‘Calm down, man, calm down! We South Africans have a bloody nasty sense of humour. It’s good to see you again, my friend.’

  On the drive to Malabo, the island’s capital, Boerke filled Jaeger in on how well the coup had gone. The intelligence that Major Mojo – Jaeger’s former Black Beach jailer – had provided had proven crucial to its success, another reason why Boerke had been keen to deliver on the favour he’d promised.

  They reached Malabo’s Santa Isabel harbour and headed along the waterfront, pulling up in front of a grand colonial-era building overlooking the water. During his three years on the island, Jaeger had done his best to keep a low profile, and he’d rarely had cause to visit the government offices.

  Boerke led him to the vaults, wherein successive regimes had stowed away the nation’s most sensitive documents – not that there were many to be had in a place like Equatorial Guinea. Boerke got the doors to the vault firmly closed and bolted, with his bodyguards standing watch outside. Just he and Jaeger remained in the cool, dark, musty interior.

  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.’

  87

  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’.