Burning Angels

by Bear Grylls

Jaeger eyed the match. The opposing team were rucking the Sherborne boys back again. No try. Jaeger doubted the Haka was still an opener to their matches, with him and Raff being absent now for three long years.

  He was about to turn and leave, making for the Triumph parked discreetly beneath the trees, when he felt a presence at his side. He glanced round.

  ‘Jesus, William. I thought it must be you. But what . . .? Hell. It’s been a long time.’ The figure thrust out a hand. ‘How the devil are you?’

  Jaeger would have recognised the guy anywhere. Overweight, snaggle-toothed, with somewhat bulging eyes and greying hair held back in a ponytail, Jules Holland was better known to all as the Ratcatcher. Or the Rat for short.

  The two men shook hands. ‘I’ve been . . . Well, I’ve been . . . alive.’

  Holland grimaced. ‘Doesn’t sound too hot.’ A pause. ‘You just kind of disappeared. There was that Christmas rugby sevens tournament: you, Luke and Ruth a big presence at the school. By the New Year – gone. Not a word.’

  His tone was bordering on hurt. Jaeger could understand why. To some they were the most unlikely of friends, but over time Jaeger had warmed to the Rat’s unconventional, maverick ways, plus his complete lack of pretentiousness.

  With the Rat, what you saw was what you got – always.

  That Christmas had been one of the few occasions on which Jaeger had got Ruth to really buy in to the rugby thing. Prior to that, she’d been loath to watch matches, for she couldn’t bear to see Luke getting ‘so beaten up’, as she put it.

  Jaeger understood, but even at eight years of age Luke had been obsessed by the game. Blessed with natural protective instincts and a fierce loyalty, he’d proven a stalwart in defence. A rock. A lion.

  His tackling was fearsome, and few were the opposition players who managed to get past him. And in spite of his mother’s worries, he wore his bruises and cuts as badges of honour. He seemed to have a natural appreciation of the saying – ‘What doesn’t break you makes you stronger’.

  That Christmas’s sport – Rugby Sevens; seven-a-side – tended to be more fast-flowing and less bogged down by the brutal attrition of the regular game. Jaeger had lured Ruth to that first sevens match, and once she had seen her son running like the wind and scoring a fine try, she’d been hooked.

  From then on she and Jaeger had stood arm in arm on the sidelines, screaming out their support for Luke and his team. It had been one of those precious moments when Jaeger had felt the simple joy of being a family.

  He had videoed one of the toughest matches, so they could play the tape to the boys and analyse how best to improve their game. Lessons learned. But now, those were some of the last images he had of his missing son.

  And he had replayed those scenes over and over during the three dark years since losing him.

  14

  On the spur of the moment, they’d driven north that Christmas, to Wales, to do some winter camping, the car stuffed full of gear and presents. Ruth was a lover of all things nature, and a diehard conservationist, and her son had inherited those same interests. As a threesome, they loved nothing more than to head out into the wild.

  But it was there on the Welsh mountains that Ruth and Luke had been ripped away from him. Jaeger – traumatised and driven wild by grief – had cut off all links to the world they had once inhabited, Jules Holland and his son Daniel included.

  Daniel – who had Asperger’s, a form of autism – had been Luke’s best friend at school. Jaeger could only imagine how suddenly losing his battle buddy had affected him.

  Holland waved a hand vaguely towards the match. ‘As you’ll have noticed, Dan’s still blessed with two flat feet. Takes after his dad, a cack-handed monster at any sport. At least with rugby you can bumble through with a bit of fat and muscle.’ He glanced at his paunch. ‘More the former, when you’re talking about a son of mine.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jaeger offered. ‘About the disappearance. The silence. Stuff happened.’ He glanced around at the rain-swept scene. ‘I guess maybe you heard.’

  ‘A little.’ Holland shrugged. ‘I feel for you. No need to apologise. No need to say anything at all.’

  A silence lay between them. Companionable. Understated. Accepting. The thud of boots on wet turf and the yells of the parents punctuated their thoughts.

  ‘So how is Daniel?’ Jaeger asked eventually. ‘It must’ve been hard for him. Losing Luke. Those two were utterly inseparable.’

  Holland smiled. ‘Kindred spirits, that’s how I always thought of them.’ He glanced at Jaeger. ‘Dan’s made some new friends. But he never stops asking, “When’s Luke coming back?” That kind of thing.’

  Jaeger felt a lump in his throat. Maybe it had been a mistake coming here. It was twisting him up inside. He tried changing the subject. ‘You busy? Still up to the same old monkey business?’

  ‘Busier than ever. Once you earn a certain reputation, every agency and their mother comes knocking. I’m freelance still. For hire to the highest bidder. The more competitors, the more my rates keep rising.’

  Holland had earned his reputation – and his nickname – in a decidedly uncertain field: computer and internet piracy. He’d started in his teens, by hacking into the school portal and replacing the photos of the teachers he didn’t like with donkeys.

  He’d gone on to hijack the A-level examination board website, awarding himself and his school mates straight A’s. A natural-born social activist and rebel, he’d graduated to hacking a wealth of criminal and gang-related groups, taking money from their bank accounts and transferring it direct to their opponents.

  As just one example, he’d hacked the bank account of a Brazilian mafioso outfit that traded illegal narcotics and timber out of the Amazon, transferring several million dollars to Greenpeace.

  Of course, the environmental activists hadn’t been able to keep the cash. They couldn’t be seen to profit from the very thing they fought against, not to mention the illegality. But the resulting press coverage had dragged the mafioso group into the limelight, speeding their demise. And it had been one more step in earning the Ratcatcher his notoriety.

  With each success, Holland left the same message: Hacked by the Rat. And so it was that his unique skills had come to the attention of those who make it their business to know.

  At that stage, he had found himself at a crossroads: either go to court facing a plethora of hacking charges, or start working quietly for the good guys. Accordingly, he was now a much-sought-after consultant to an alphabet soup of intelligence agencies, with an enviable security clearance.

  ‘Glad to hear you’re busy,’ Jaeger told him. ‘Just don’t ever take a contract with the bad guys. The day the Rat starts working for the wrong side, we’re finished.’

  Holland brushed back his straggly hair and snorted. ‘Fat chance.’ He swivelled his gaze from the rugby field to Jaeger. ‘You know something: you and Raff – you were the only ones ever to take Dan seriously on the sports field. You gave him self-belief. You gave him a bloody chance. He still misses you. Enormously.’

  Jaeger grimaced apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. My world was a mess. For a long while I couldn’t even be there for myself, if you know what I mean.’

  Holland pointed at his son, as the young, gangly lad stepped forward for a scrum. ‘Will, take a look at him. He’s still crappy, but at least he’s playing. He’s one of the boys. That’s your doing. Your legacy.’ He glanced at his feet, then up at Jaeger again. ‘So, like I said, no apologies asked for or required. Quite the reverse, in fact. I owe you. You ever need my . . . unique services, you only have to ask.’

  Jaeger smiled. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

  ‘I mean it. I’d drop everything.’ Holland grinned. ‘And for you I’d even waive my obscenely expensive fees. It’d be all at no charge.’

  15

  ‘So, what exactly is this place?’ Jaeger ventured.

  A few days after his visit to the school, he found himself in a vast concrete edi
fice set deep within the heavily forested countryside to the east of Berlin. The team from his Amazon expedition was filtering in from various scattered locations, and he was the first to arrive. When all had reached here they would be seven in number – Jaeger, Raff and Narov included.

  Jaeger’s guide, a silver-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard, gestured at the dull-green walls. They rose to a good twelve feet on either side, the oblong windowless tunnel having an even greater breadth. Massive steel doors branched off to either side, and overhead ran a squat duct. The place was clearly military in design, and there was something sinister about its empty, echoing passageways that put Jaeger’s nerves on edge.

  ‘The identity of this place depends upon your nationality,’ the elderly man began. ‘If you are German, this is the Falkenhagen Bunker – after the nearby town of the same name. It was here, in this vast complex – most of which is underground and was thus immune to bombing – that Hitler ordered the creation of a weapon to finally defeat the Allies.’

  He glanced at Jaeger from under silvery brows. His transatlantic accent made it difficult to place his nationality. He could be British, or American, or a citizen of any number of European nations. But somehow a simple, basic decency and honesty shone out of him.

  There was a calm compassion about his gaze, but Jaeger didn’t doubt that it masked a core of inner steel. This man – Peter Miles as he’d introduced himself – was one of Narov’s top people, which meant that he was bound to share some of her unique killer instincts.

  ‘You have heard perhaps of N-stoff?’ Miles queried.

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘Very few have. Chlorine trifluoride: N-stoff – or Substance-N as it would be in English. Imagine a fearsome dual agent: napalm crossed with sarin nerve gas. That was N-stoff. So volatile was it that it would ignite even when tipped into water, and as it burned it would also gas you to death.

  ‘According to Hitler’s Chemicplan, six hundred tonnes were to be manufactured here every month.’ He let out a gentle laugh. ‘Thankfully, Stalin rolled in with his armour long before more than a fraction of that amount could ever be produced.’

  ‘And then?’ Jaeger prompted.

  ‘Post-war, this place was transformed into one of the Soviet regime’s foremost Cold War defensive sites. It was where the Soviet leaders would sit out nuclear Armageddon, safely ensconced one hundred feet below ground and encased in an impregnable steel and concrete sarcophagus.’

  Jaeger glanced at the ceiling. ‘Those ducts; they’re for piping in clean, filtered air, right? Which means the entire complex could be sealed off from the outside.’

  The elderly man’s eyes twinkled. ‘Indeed. Young but smart, I see.’

  Young. Jaeger smiled, his own eyes crinkling with laughter lines. He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had called him that. He was warming to Peter Miles.

  ‘So how did we – you – end up here?’ he queried.

  Miles turned a corner, ushering Jaeger down another interminable passageway. ‘In 1990, East and West Germany were reunified. The Soviets were forced to hand back such bases to the German authorities.’ He smiled. ‘We were offered it by the German government. Very discreetly, but for as long as we might need. Despite its dark history, it suits our purposes admirably. It is utterly secure. And very, very discreet. Plus, you know how the English saying goes: beggars can’t be choosers.’

  Jaeger laughed. He appreciated the guy’s humility, not to mention his turn of phrase. ‘The German government offering up a former Nazi bunker? How does that work?’

  The old man shrugged his shoulders. ‘We feel it is somewhat fitting. There is a certain delicious irony about it all. And you know something: if there is one nation that will never forget the horrors of the war, it is Germany. They are driven and empowered by their guilt – still, to this day.’

  ‘I guess I’ve never really thought about it,’ Jaeger confessed.

  ‘Well perhaps you should,’ the old man chided, gently. ‘If we are safe anywhere, we are perhaps most safe hiding in a former Nazi bunker in Germany, where all of this began. But . . . I get ahead of myself. These are discussions best to be had when the rest of your team is here.’

  Jaeger was shown to his sparse room. He’d eaten on the flight, and in truth he was dog-tired. After the whirlwind of the past three weeks – the Cuban mission, the edit suite bombing, and now mustering his team – he was looking forward to a long sleep secreted deep below ground.

  Peter Miles bade him goodnight. Once the massive steel door had swung shut, Jaeger became aware of a deafening silence. This far underground, and encased in several feet of reinforced concrete, not the slightest sound could be heard.

  It felt utterly unearthly.

  He lay down and focused on his breathing. It was a trick he’d learned during his time in the military. A deep breath in, hold it for several seconds, followed by a long breath out again. Repeat. Focus on the act of breathing, and all other worries would dissolve from your mind.

  His last conscious thought was that, lying here beneath the ground and in utter darkness, it felt as if he had been consigned to his own grave.

  But he was exhausted, and it wasn’t long before he drifted into a deep sleep.

  16

  ‘OUT! GET OUT! OUT!’ a voice screamed. ‘OUT! BASTARD MOVE!’

  Jaeger felt the vehicle’s door being ripped open as a horde of dark figures wearing balaclavas swarmed around, weapons held at the ready. Hands reached in and dragged him out violently, as Peter Miles was likewise hauled from the driver’s side.

  After a solid fourteen hours’ sleep, Jaeger had joined Miles on a ride to the airport, to collect two of the others from his team. But as they’d wound their way along the narrow forest track leading out of Falkenhagen, they’d found their way blocked by a fallen tree. Miles had slowed to a halt, clearly suspecting nothing. Moments later, a crowd of balaclava-clad gunmen had swarmed out of the trees.

  Jaeger was thrown to the ground, his face forced into the sodden dirt.

  ‘KEEP DOWN! FUCKING DOWN!’

  He felt powerful arms pinioning him. His face was driven so hard into the earth that he couldn’t breathe. As he choked and spluttered on the smell of rot and decay, he was gripped by a rising sense of panic.

  They were suffocating him.

  He tried to lift his head to grab a gasp of air, but a series of savage kicks and punches rained down.

  ‘GET DOWN!’ the voice screamed. ‘Get your ugly, shitty face down into the dirt!’

  Jaeger tried to break away, flailing at his attackers and screaming curses. All it earned him was a fusillade of vicious blows, this time from a rifle butt. As he went down under the beating, he felt his hands being wrenched violently backwards, as if his arms were about to be ripped out of their sockets, and then his wrists were lashed vice-tight with gaffer tape.

  The next moment the forest chill was rent by gunshots. Bang! Bang! Bang! Wild shots, echoing deafeningly amongst the shadows beneath the thick cover. Shots that made Jaeger’s heart skip a beat.

  This is bad. Real bad.

  He managed to force his head up enough to grab a quick peek. He saw that Peter Miles had managed to make a break for it and was weaving through the trees.

  More shots were unleashed. Jaeger saw Miles falter and stumble, and then he tumbled on to his front and lay still. One of the gunmen rushed across to him. He levelled a pistol at the fallen man, pulling the trigger three times in quick succession.

  Jaeger felt himself shaking. They’d executed Peter Miles – that gentle old man – in cold blood. Who in the name of God was behind this?

  An instant later, someone grabbed Jaeger’s hair and yanked his head backwards. Before he could say a word, he felt a strip of gaffer tape being slapped across his mouth, then a black cloth bag was dragged over his head and tied around his neck.

  Everything went very dark.

  Stumbling blindly, Jaeger was yanked to his feet and propelled forward helter-skelt
er through the woodland. He tripped over a fallen branch and fell hard.

  Wild screams: ‘GET UP! UP! UP!’

  He was dragged onwards across a patch of boggy ground, the smell of rotten leaf matter assailing his senses. The frantic forced march went on and on, until Jaeger felt totally disorientated. Finally he detected a new noise up ahead: the rhythmic throb of an engine. They were taking him to some kind of vehicle. Through the bag he could just make out two bright spots piercing the thick shadows.

  Headlamps.

  With two guys gripping him by the armpits, he was thrust towards the lights, his feet dragging uselessly. The next moment he was slammed face-first into the front grille of the vehicle, pain shooting through his forehead.

  ‘BASTARD KNEEL! ON YOUR KNEES! KNEEL!’

  He was thrust into a kneeling position. He could feel the headlamps playing across his face, the blinding light bleeding through the bag. Without a word of warning it was torn away. He tried to turn his head from the glare, but he was held by his hair in a savage grip, eyes forced into the light.

  ‘NAME!’ the voice snarled. It was right beside his ear now. ‘Let’s hear your bastard name!’

  The speaker was hidden from Jaeger, but the voice sounded foreign, and thick with some Eastern European accent. For a terrible moment Jaeger had visions of the gang who’d suffered the Kolokol-1 attack – Vladimir and his lot – taking him captive. But surely it couldn’t be them, for how in God’s name would they have found him?

  Think, Jaeger. Fast.

  ‘NAME!’ the voice yelled again. ‘NAME!’

  Jaeger’s throat was dry with shock and fear. He managed to rasp out the one word: ‘Jaeger.’

  The men holding him slammed his face into the nearest headlamp, leaving his features scrunched up tight against the glass.

  ‘Both names. Both bastard names!’

  ‘Will. William Jaeger.’ He coughed out the words through a mouthful of blood.

  ‘So, this is better, William Jaeger.’ The same voice, sinister and predatory, but a fraction calmer now. ‘Now you tell me: what are names of the rest of your crew?’