Burning Angels

by Bear Grylls

  Jaeger figured the last thing the force on that Cuban island would be expecting was to be hit in the depths of night by the same gas they themselves had used.

  The enemy had done that to him.

  He had learned the lesson.

  It was payback time.

  Kolokol-1 was an agent that the Russians kept swathed in secrecy. No one knew its exact make-up, but in 2002 it had taken a sudden leap into the public consciousness when a bunch of terrorists had taken control of a Moscow theatre, holding hundreds hostage.

  The Russians hadn’t messed around. Their special forces – the Spetsnaz – had pumped the theatre full of Kolokol-1. Then they’d hit the place like a whirlwind, breaking the siege and killing all the terrorists. Unfortunately, by that time many of the hostages had also been affected by the gas.

  The Russians had never admitted to what exactly they had used, but Jaeger’s friends in Britain’s secret defence laboratories had got hold of some samples and confirmed that it was Kolokol-1. The gas was supposedly an incapacitating agent, but prolonged exposure to it had proved lethal for some in that Moscow theatre.

  In short, it was well suited to Jaeger’s purposes.

  Jaeger wanted some of Vladimir’s men to survive. Maybe all of them. If he wiped them out, he’d very likely end up with the entire Cuban police, army and air force on his tail. And right now he and his team were winging it; they needed to slip in and out without being noticed.

  Even for those who survived, Kolokol-1 was a knockout agent. It would take them weeks to recover, by which time Jaeger and his people – plus Leticia Santos – would be long gone.

  There was one other reason why Jaeger wanted Vladimir, at least, alive. Jaeger had questions to ask. Vladimir would be providing the answers.

  ‘So this is how we’re going to do it,’ he told the pilot. ‘We need to be over a six-figure grid at 0200 hours. That grid is a patch of ocean just to the west of the target island, two hundred metres off shore. You’re to fly in at treetop height, then blip up to three hundred feet to release us in an LLP.’

  The pilot stared. ‘LLP? It’s your funeral.’

  The LLP – low-level parachute drop – was an ultra-stealthy elite forces technique rarely used in combat, due to the risks involved.

  ‘Once we’re gone, you drop down as low as possible,’ Jaeger continued. ‘Give the island a wide a berth. Shield your aircraft – and the noise – from any watching—’

  ‘Hell, I’m a Night Stalker,’ the pilot cut in. ‘I know what I’m doin’. I don’t need telling.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. You pull away from the island and set a course for home. At which stage, we’re done. You’re free of us.’ Jaeger paused. ‘Are we clear?’

  The pilot shrugged. ‘Kind of. Thing is, yours is one shitty kind of a plan.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Simple. There are any number of ways I can double-cross you. I can drop you over the wrong coordinates – how about the middle of the goddam ocean? – and leave you to swim for it. Or I pull up high and buzz the island. Hey, Vladimir! Wake up! The cavalry’s comin’ – all three of ’em! Hell, your plan’s got more holes than a freakin’ sieve.’

  Jaeger nodded. ‘I hear you. But the thing is, you won’t do any of those things. And here’s the reason why. You’re guilty as hell about my seven dead men. You need a shot at redemption, or it’ll torture you for the rest of your days.’

  ‘You figure I got a conscience,’ the pilot growled. ‘You figure wrong.’

  ‘You’ve got one all right,’ Jaeger countered. ‘But just in case, there’s a second reason. You shit on us, you’ll end up in a whole world of hurt.’

  ‘Says who? Like how?’

  ‘Thing is, you’ll have just completed an unsanctioned flight to Cuba at below radar level. You’ll be routing back to DFW, as you got nowhere else to go. We have good friends in Cuba. They’re awaiting a one-word signal from me: SUCCESS. If they don’t get that signal by 0500 hours, they’ll contact US Customs with a tip-off that your aircraft has been flying shuttle runs stuffed full of drugs.’

  The pilot’s eyes blazed. ‘I never touch the stuff! It’s an evil business. Plus the guys at DFW – they know us. They’ll never buy it.’

  ‘I think they will. At the very least they’ll have to check. They can’t ignore a tip-off from the director of Cuban Customs. And when the DEA bring their sniffer dogs aboard, they’ll go crazy. You see, I’ve made sure to scatter some white powder around the rear of your aircraft. Lots of hiding places in a C-130’s hold for a few grams of cocaine.’

  Jaeger could see the pilot’s jaw cramping with tension. He eyed the pistol in Jaeger’s hand. He was desperate to jump him, but he knew for sure he’d take a bullet.

  Every man has his breaking point.

  You could push a guy too far.

  ‘It’s carrot and stick, Jim. The carrot is your redemption. Leaves us just about even. The stick is life imprisonment in a US penitentiary for running drugs. You fly this mission, you’re home and dry. You’re clean. Your life goes back to normal, only you’ve got a little less on your conscience. So every which way you look at it, it makes sense to fly the mission.’

  The pilot levelled his gaze at Jaeger. ‘I’ll get you to your drop zone.’

  Jaeger smiled. ‘I’ll go tell my guys to get ready for the jump.’

  5

  The C-130 roared in low and fast, skimming the night-dark wave crests.

  Jaeger and his team were poised at the open ramp, the fierce blasts of the aircraft’s slipstream howling around their ears. Outside was a sea of raging darkness.

  Here and there Jaeger could see a flash of seething white as the aircraft passed low over a reef, the waves breaking wild across its surface. The target island was also ringed with jagged coral – terrain that they would do best to avoid. Water would provide a relatively soft landing, coral a leg-shattering one. All being well, Jaeger’s intended jump point would get them into the ocean inside the innermost reef, and just a short distance from the shoreline.

  Once the C-130 pilot had been persuaded that he had no option but to fly the mission, he’d signed up to it more or less wholeheartedly. And right now Jaeger could tell that these guys truly were what they claimed to be – former Night Stalkers.

  The chill night air swirled into the hold as the four hook-bladed propellers hammered away to either side. The pilot was flying at close to wave-top height, throwing the massive machine around as if it was a Formula 1 racing car.

  The effect in the dark and echoing hold would have been puke-inducing were Jaeger and his team not so used to such a ride.

  He turned to his two fellow operators. Takavesi ‘Raff’ Raffara was a massive hunk of a man – a rock-hard Maori and one of Jaeger’s closest friends from their years in the SAS. A totally bulletproof operator, Raff was the man Jaeger would choose to fight back-to-back with if ever the shit went down. He would trust Raff – who wore his long hair braided, traditional Maori style – with his life. He’d done so many a time when they’d soldiered together over the years, and again more recently, when Raff had come to rescue Jaeger from drink and ruin at the ends of the earth.

  The second operator was a quiet, sylph-like figure, blonde hair whipping around her fine features in the tearing slipstream. A former Russian special forces operator, Irina Narov was striking-looking and unflappable, and she had proved herself many times during their expedition to the Amazon. But that didn’t mean Jaeger had got the measure of her, or found her any the less troublesome.

  Oddly, though, he’d almost come to trust her; to rely upon her. Despite her awkward and sometimes downright maddening manner, in her own way she was as bulletproof reliable as Raff. And at times she’d proved herself just as deadly – a cold, calculating killer without equal.

  Nowadays Narov lived in New York and had taken American citizenship. She’d explained to Jaeger that she operated off-grid, working with some international outfit whose identity he had yet to fully get to gr
ips with. It stank of shady, but it was that outfit – Narov’s people – who had bankrolled the present undertaking: rescuing Leticia Santos. And right now that was all Jaeger cared about.

  Then there were Narov’s mysterious links to Jaeger’s family, and in particular to his late lamented grandfather, William Edward ‘Ted’ Jaeger. Grandpa Ted had served with British special forces during the Second World War, inspiring Jaeger to go into the military. Narov claimed to have regarded Grandpa Ted as her own grandfather, and to be working in his name and memory today.

  It made little sense to Jaeger. He’d never heard anyone in his family make the barest mention of Narov, Grandpa Ted included. At the end of their Amazon expedition he’d vowed to get some answers from her; to break the enigma she embodied. Yet the present rescue mission had had to take priority.

  Via Narov’s people and their contacts in the Cuban underworld, Jaeger’s team had been able to monitor the location where Leticia Santos was being held. They’d been fed useful intelligence, and as a bonus they’d been passed a detailed description of Vladimir himself.

  But worryingly, in the last few days Leticia had been moved, from a relatively low-security villa to the remote offshore island. The guard had been doubled, and Jaeger was worried that if they moved her again he might lose her completely.

  There was a fourth figure in the C-130’s hold. The loadmaster was roped tight to the aircraft’s side, so he could perch on the ramp without being torn out by the raging slipstream. He pressed his headphones closer as he listened to a message from the pilot. Nodding his understanding, he got to his feet and flashed five fingers in front of their faces: five minutes to the jump.

  Jaeger, Raff and Narov levered themselves to their feet. The success of the coming mission would rely on three things: speed, aggression and surprise – ‘SAS’ for short, the unofficial slogan of special forces operators. For that reason it was vital that they were light on their feet and could move swiftly and silently across the island. Accordingly, their kit had been kept to the absolute minimum.

  Apart from their LLP parachute, each team member carried a backpack containing Kolokol-1 grenades, explosives, water, emergency rations, a medical kit and a small, sharp-bladed axe. The rest of the space was taken up by their CBRN protective suits and respirators.

  When Jaeger had first served in the military, the emphasis had all been on NBC: nuclear, biological and chemical. Now it was CBRN – chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear – the new terminology reflecting the new world order. When the Soviet Union had been the enemy of the West, the top threat was nuclear. But in a fractured world rife with rogue states and terrorist groups, chemical and biological warfare – or more likely terrorism – was the new priority threat.

  Jaeger, Raff and Narov each carried a SIG P228, with an extended twenty-round magazine, plus six mags of spare ammo. And each had their blade. Narov’s was a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife, a razor-sharp weapon for up-close killing. It was a highly distinctive weapon that had had been issued to British commandos during the war. Her attachment to that blade was another of the mysteries that so intrigued Jaeger.

  But tonight, no one was intending to use bullets or blades to take care of the enemy. The quieter and cleaner they could keep this, the better. Let the Kolokol-1 do its silent work.

  Jaeger checked his watch: three minutes out from the drop. ‘You ready?’ he yelled. ‘Remember, give the gas time to take hold.’

  He got a nod and a thumbs up. Raff and Narov were absolute pros – the best – and he didn’t detect the slightest hint of nerves. Sure, they were outnumbered ten-to-one, but he figured the Kolokol-1 evened up the odds a little. Of course, no one was exactly relishing using the gas. But sometimes, as Narov argued, you used a lesser evil to fight a greater one.

  As he psyched himself up for the jump Jaeger felt a niggling worry, though: there were never any guarantees when doing an LLP.

  When serving in the SAS, he’d spent a great deal of time trialling cutting-edge, space-age equipment. Working with the Joint Air Transport Establishment (the JATE) – a secretive outfit overseeing James Bond-like air-insertion techniques – he’d leapt from the very highest altitudes possible.

  But recently the British military had developed a very different kind of concept. Instead of jumping from the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, the LLP was designed to enable a paratrooper to leap at near-zero altitude and still survive.

  In theory, it allowed a jump height of some 250 feet, so keeping the aircraft well below radar level. In short, it enabled a force to fly into hostile territory with little risk of detection – hence why they were using it on tonight’s mission.

  With split seconds in which to deploy, the LLP chute was designed to have a flat and wide profile, to catch the maximum air. But even so, it still required a rocket-assisted pack to get the chute to fully deploy before the jumper splashed down. And even with that rocket pack – in essence, a release mechanism that blasted your parachute high into the air – you still had barely five seconds in which to slow your descent and make landfall.

  That allowed no time for messing up.

  But likewise, it gave zero time for the enemy to spot you, or to prevent you from reaching the ground – or the water – alive.

  6

  The jump light flashed green for go.

  In one continuous stream lasting bare milliseconds, Jaeger, Raff and Narov dived out of the C-130’s open ramp. Their stick-like figures were sucked into the howling void. Jaeger felt himself buffeted like a ragdoll in a giant wind tunnel. Below him, he could just make out the seething ocean rushing ever closer: impact had to be just seconds away.

  Not a moment too soon he triggered his rocket-assisted chute, and suddenly he felt as if he was being blasted into the heavens on the tail of some roaring missile. Moments later the rocket motor died, and the chute’s canopy bloomed high in the darkness above him.

  It inflated with a sharp snap, catching the air just seconds after the rocket pack reached the apex of its climb. Jaeger’s stomach did a series of sickening somersaults . . . and the next instant he found himself drifting gently downwards towards the heaving sea.

  As his feet hit the water, Jaeger punched his quick-release mechanism, discarding his bulky parachute rig. The prevailing ocean current was south-easterly, so it would carry the chutes towards the open waters of the Atlantic, which meant they’d very likely never be seen again.

  That was just as Jaeger wanted it: they needed to get in and out leaving no sign that they had ever been here.

  Very quickly the Hercules disappeared, its ghostly form being swallowed up by the empty night. Roaring darkness was all around Jaeger now. All he could hear was the growl of the ocean surf; all he could feel was the warm punch and drag of the Caribbean Sea, its salty tang strong in his mouth and nostrils.

  Each of their rucksacks was lined with a waterproof canoe bag. The tough black sacks transformed the heavy packs into makeshift flotation devices. Holding these before them, the three figures began to kick out for the ragged fringe of palm trees that marked the shoreline. They began surfing inwards on the powerful breakers. Barely minutes after hitting the water they made landfall, crawling on to the sand and dragging their sodden forms into the nearest patch of cover.

  For five minutes they waited and listened in the shadows, scanning their surroundings with eagle eyes.

  If someone had spotted the C-130 making the drop, it was now that they were most likely to put in an appearance. But Jaeger could detect nothing. No unusual noise. No surprise movement. Seemingly no life out there at all. Apart from the rhythmic pounding of the waves on the pristine white sand, all around was utter stillness.

  Jaeger could feel the adrenalin of the coming attack kicking into his veins now. It was time to get moving.

  He pulled out a compact Garmin GPS unit to check his position. It wasn’t unknown for aircrew to put troops down on the wrong grid, and tonight’s pilot would have had more excuse than most to do so.r />
  Grid confirmed, Jaeger grabbed a tiny, luminous compass, took a bearing and signalled the way forward. Narov and Raff moved in behind him and they set off noiselessly into the forest. No words were necessary between such battle-hardened professionals.

  Thirty minutes later, they’d traversed the largely deserted landmass. The island was cloaked in thick groves of palm trees, interspersed with swathes of shoulder-high elephant grass, which meant they’d been able to move like wraiths through its cover, unseen and undetected.

  Jaeger signalled a halt. By his calculations they should be one hundred metres short of the villa complex in which Leticia Santos was being held.

  He crouched low, and Raff and Narov closed in.

  ‘Suit up,’ he whispered.

  The threat from an agent like Kolokol-1 was twofold: one, breathing it in; two, absorbing it via a living, porous membrane like the skin. They were using Raptor 2 protective suits, a special forces variant made of an ultra-lightweight material, but with an inner layer of activated carbon microspheres to soak up any droplets of agent that might be sloshing around in the atmosphere.

  The Raptor suits would prove hot and claustrophobic, and Jaeger was glad they were going in during the dead of night, when the Cuban air was at its coolest.

  They also had state-of-the-art Avon FM54 gas masks, to shield face, eyes and lungs. They were superlative pieces of kit, having a flame-hardened exterior, a single visor and an ultra-flexible, close-fitting design.

  Even so, Jaeger loathed donning these respirators. He was a man who thrilled to the open and the wild. He detested being locked up, entrapped or unnaturally constrained.

  He steeled himself and threw his head forward, dragging the respirator over his face, making sure that the rubber formed an airtight seal with his skin. He tightened the retaining straps, and felt the mask pull in close around his features.

  They’d each selected a mask personally tailored to fit their own face size, but had had to bring a looser-fitting escape hood for Leticia Santos. The hoods were universal in size, yet still provided a decent period of protection in high concentrations of toxic gas.