Burning Angels

by Bear Grylls

  The trouble was, for some inexplicable reason, the President seemed to trust Kammler; to put his faith in his dubious abilities. Brooks couldn’t understand it. Kammler seemed to have a peculiar hold over Byrne; an unfathomable hold.

  ‘So, gentlemen, to business.’ The President waved them towards some comfy chairs. ‘It seems there has been some trouble in what I like to think of as our backyard. South America. Brazil. The Amazon, to be specific.’

  ‘What’s it concerning, Mr President?’ Brooks asked.

  ‘Two months ago, seven individuals were killed in the Amazon. Mixed nationals, but mostly Brazilians; none were American citizens.’ Byrne spread his hands. ‘Why does it concern us? Well, the Brazilians seem convinced that those doing the killing were Americans, or at least under the control of an American agency. When I shake hands with the Brazilian president and get asked about this, I don’t like feeling I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about.’

  The President left a weighty pause. ‘Those seven individuals were part of an international expedition, the purpose of which was to recover a Second World War warplane. It seems that when they got close to their objective, a mystery force started to hunt them down. It’s the make-up of that force that has brought this to my office.’

  Byrne eyed the two CIA men. ‘That hunter force had significant assets at its command, assets that only an American agency could bring to bear – or so the Brazilian president argues. They included Predator UAVs, Black Hawk stealth helicopters, and a fairly impressive array of weaponry.

  ‘So, gentlemen, is this something that either of you might be aware of? Is there any way it could be the work of a US agency, as the Brazilians seem to be suggesting?’

  Brooks shrugged. ‘It’s not beyond the realms of possibility, Mr President. But put it this way, sir: it’s not something I have any knowledge of. I can check and we can reload in forty-eight hours, but I know nothing about it right now. I can’t speak for my colleague.’ He turned to the figure beside him.

  ‘Sir, as it happens, I do know something.’ Kammler threw a withering glance at Brooks. ‘I make it my business to know. That warplane was part of a project known back then by various codenames. Point is, Mr President, it was top secret then and it is entirely in our best interests for it to remain that way.’

  The President frowned. ‘Go on. I’m listening.’

  ‘Sir, it’s an election year. As always, securing the support of the Jewish lobby is crucial. Back in 1945, that warplane carried some of the top Nazi leaders to a secret South American safe haven. But of chief concern to you, Mr President, was that it was also loaded with Nazi loot. Inevitably, of course, that included a great deal of Jewish gold.’

  The President shrugged. ‘I don’t get the reason for the concern. The looted Jewish gold story – it’s been around for years.’

  ‘Yes, sir, it has. But this time it’s different. What isn’t known is that we – the American government – sponsored this specific relocation flight. We did so in strictest secret, of course.’ Kammler cast a shrewd glance in the President’s direction. ‘And I would respectfully suggest that it should stay a strict secret.’

  The President sighed deeply. ‘A deal with the proverbial devil. It could be embarrassing in an election year – is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it could. Very embarrassing and very damaging. It didn’t happen on your watch. It happened in the late spring of 1945. But that doesn’t mean the media wouldn’t have a feeding frenzy.’

  The President glanced from Kammler to Brooks. ‘Dan? What’s your take on this?’

  A frown creased the CIA director’s brow. ‘Not for the first time, sir, where my deputy director is concerned, I am in the dark. If true, sure – it could prove embarrassing. Conversely, it could be a whole crock of horseshit.’

  Kammler stiffened. Something in him seemed to snap. ‘I would have thought you should make it your business to know all that happens within the Agency!’

  Brooks pounced. ‘So, it was CIA-related? It was Agency business! The goddam Brazilians have you bang to rights!’

  ‘Gentlemen, please.’ The President held up his hands for silence. ‘I have a very persistent Brazilian ambassador demanding answers. At present it is a private government-to-government affair. But there’s no guarantee that it will stay that way.’ He eyed Brooks and Kammler. ‘And if you’re right, and this is an American-sponsored Nazi Jewish gold conspiracy . . . well, it looks bad.’

  Brooks remained silent. Much as he hated it, the President – and Kammler – was right. If this hit the press, it wouldn’t be the greatest ever launch pad for the President’s re-election. And while he knew Byrne was weak, right now he was about the best they had.

  The President addressed his next words directly to Kammler. ‘If, as the Brazilians claim, there is a rogue US outfit involved, things could get very messy. So is there, Hank? Was any of this at the behest of people under our command or control?’

  ‘Sir, your predecessor signed an EXORD,’ Kammler offered, by way of an answer. ‘A presidential executive order. It green-lit the mounting of certain operations without any need for clearance. In other words, with no presidential oversight. That’s because in certain circumstances it’s better for you not to know. That way, you can always deny knowledge if things get . . . messy.’

  President Byrne looked troubled. ‘Hank, I understand that. I know all about deniability. But right now I’m asking to to be briefed as fully as you are able.’

  Kammler’s expression hardened. ‘Sir, let me put it this way: sometimes things cannot remain a secret unless there are agencies striving to ensure they preserve that secrecy.’

  Byrne massaged his temples. ‘Hank, make no mistake – if the Agency’s fingerprints are on this, it’s best we know the worst as early as possible. I need to know the fallout potential.’

  ‘Sir, it wasn’t CIA business.’ Kammler threw a daggers look at Brooks. ‘I can say that categorically. But I am glad you recognise the pressing need for secrecy, and might I suggest that’s in all our best interests.’

  ‘I’ll let the Brazilians know it was none of our doing,’ President Byrne announced with relief. ‘And Hank, I appreciate the need for secrecy.’ He glanced at Brooks. ‘We all appreciate it. We really do.’

  Five minutes later, Brooks drew away from the White House, his driver at the wheel. He’d made his excuses to the President – his schedule didn’t allow him to stay for lunch. Kammler had remained behind, of course. That little creep was never one to turn down an opportunity to schmooze.

  Brooks’s driver turned on to the main drag heading south out of downtown Washington. Brooks pulled out his cell phone and dialled.

  ‘Bucky? Yeah, Brooks here. It’s been a while. How you doing?’

  He listed to the response, then laughed.

  ‘You got me. It’s not just a social call. How d’you fancy a short spell out of retirement? You bored of shooting spuds across Chesapeake Bay? You are? Perfect. What say I drive down to your place, you get Nancy to fix me a bowl of clam chowder, and you and I shoot the breeze for a while?’

  He glanced out of the window at the passing cherry blossoms. Kammler and his black operations: at best the guy was a loose cannon; at worst, he and his people were overstepping their controls big time.

  With Kammler, the deeper Brooks seemed to dig, the more he uncovered. But sometimes you just had to dig and keep digging, until you found the truth.

  And sometimes the truth was very ugly.

  23

  The impenetrable woodland surrounding the Falkenhagen complex lent a certain raw wildness to the setting. It really was the kind of place where no one would ever hear you scream.

  ‘How long was I in there for?’ Jaeger asked, as he tried to massage some life back into his hands.

  He was standing outside the nearest bunker, feeling exhausted from his brutal testing and desperate for fresh air. He was also burning up with anger. Seething.

  R
aff checked his watch. ‘It’s 0700 on the eighth of March. You were in there for seventy-two hours.’

  Three days. The bastards.

  ‘So whose idea was it anyway?’ Jaeger probed.

  Raff was about to answer when Uncle Joe appeared at their side. ‘A quiet word, my boy.’ He took Jaeger gently but firmly by the arm. ‘Some things are best explained by family.’

  After Jaeger’s grandfather’s premature death two decades ago, Great-Uncle Joe had taken on the role of honorary grandpa. Having no children of his own, he’d grown uncommonly close to Jaeger, and susequently to Ruth and Luke.

  They’d been regular summer vacationers at Uncle Joe’s cabin, on remote Buccleuch Fell, in the Scottish Borders. After his family’s abduction, Jaeger had seen very little of ‘Uncle Joe’, as they called him, yet in spite of that they remained incredibly close.

  Uncle Joe and Jaeger’s grandfather had soldiered together in the earliest years of the SAS, and Jaeger was fascinated by the derring-do of their exploits.

  Now the old man led him off to where the woods shaded a patch of flat concrete, no doubt the roof of one of the countless subterranean buildings – maybe even the very room in which Jaeger had suffered his interrogations.

  ‘You’ll want to know who’s responsible,’ Uncle Joe began, ‘and of course, you have every right to answers.’

  ‘I can guess,’ Jaeger ventured darkly. ‘Narov played her part to perfection. It’s got her signature all over it.’

  Uncle Joe shook his head gently. ‘Actually, she wasn’t overly keen. As time went on, she tried to get it stopped.’ A pause. ‘You know, I think – in fact I’m absolutely certain – that Irina has something of a soft spot for you.’

  Jaeger ignored the gentle teasing. ‘So who, then?’

  ‘You have met Peter Miles? He plays a far more important role in this set-up than perhaps you might imagine.’

  Jaeger’s eyes blazed. ‘What the hell was he trying to prove?’

  ‘He was worried that the loss of your family might have destabilised you somewhat; that the trauma and guilt might have pushed you to breaking point. He was determined to test you. To prove his – and Narov’s – fears either right or wrong.’

  Jaeger’s anger flared. ‘And what gives him – them – the right?’

  ‘Actually, I would suggest he has every right.’ Uncle Joe paused. ‘Have you ever heard of the Kindertransport? In 1938, British diplomat Nicholas Winton managed to save hundreds of Jewish children, by organising trains to ship them to Britain. Peter Miles wasn’t called by that name back then. He was an eleven-year-old boy called Pieter Friedman, a German Jewish name.

  ‘Pieter had an older brother, Oscar, whom he idolised. But only those aged sixteen or under were allowed to board Winton’s trains. Pieter made it. His brother did not. Neither did his father, his mother, his aunts, uncles or grandparents. All were murdered in the death camps. Pieter was the only one of his family to survive, and to this day he believes that his life is a miracle; a gift from God.’ Uncle Joe steadied his voice. ‘So you see, if anyone knows what it is like to lose a family, Peter does. He knows how it can break a man. He knows what it can do to your mind.’

  Jaeger’s anger seemed to have dissipated somewhat. Hearing such a tale put everything into perspective.

  ‘So did I pass?’ he asked, quietly. ‘Did I prove their worries wrong? It’s all such a blur. I can barely remember what happened.’

  ‘Did you pass the test?’ Uncle Joe reached out to embrace him. ‘Yes, my boy. Of course. As I told them you would, you passed with flying colours.’ A pause. ‘Indeed, there are few who could have endured what you did. And whatever comes next, it is clear now why you must take the lead.’

  Jaeger glanced at him. ‘There is one other thing. The T-shirt. Luke’s shirt. Where did it come from?’

  A shadow crept across the old man’s features. ‘Lord knows, people have done things they should not have. In your apartment in Wardour, there is a closet. It is filled with your family’s clothes, awaiting, I presume, their return.’

  Jaeger’s anger flared again. ‘They burgled my apartment?’

  The old man sighed. ‘They did. Extreme times do not justify extreme measures, but perhaps you will find it in your heart to forgive them.’

  Jaeger shrugged. Most likely in time he would.

  ‘Luke and Ruth: they will return,’ Uncle Joe whispered, with an intensity bordering on ferocity. ‘Reclaim that T-shirt, Will. Replace it carefully in your closet.’

  He gripped Jaeger’s arm with surprising strength. ‘Ruth and Luke – they will be coming home.’

  24

  Peter Miles – Pieter Friedman as once was – stood before them in the former Soviet command bunker of the Falkenhagen complex. It made a curious setting for the coming briefing.

  The bunker was massive and set impossibly deep underground: to reach it, Jaeger had had to descend six flights of switchback steps. It had a high, domed ceiling, criss-crossed by a latticework of massive steel girders, like some kind of giant robotic bird’s nest sunk far into the earth.

  To left and right were bolted steel ladders, which in turn led to hatchways recessed into the walls. Where those led was anyone’s guess, for off the main rooms lay a labyrinth of tunnels, pipes, vertical shafts, tubes and ducts, plus ranks of enormous steel cylinders – presumably where the stocks of N-stoff had been produced by the Nazis.

  There were few creature comforts in the bare, echoing chamber. Jaeger and his team were seated on cheap plastic chairs arranged in a semicircle, around a bare wooden table. Raff and Dale were there, along with the rest of Jaeger’s Amazon team. He eyed each in turn.

  Nearest was Lewis Alonzo, a black American and former US Navy SEAL. During their Amazon expedition, Jaeger had got the measure of the man. He liked to play an act – big, muscled and indestructible, but not the sharpest tool in the box.

  In actual fact, quite the reverse was true. He had a mind almost as imposing as his massive physique. In short, Alonzo combined Mike Tyson’s stature with Will Smith’s looks and sharp, incisive wit. He was also genuine, fearless and possessed of a very generous heart.

  Jaeger trusted him.

  Next was the comparatively diminutive figure of Hiro Kamishi, a former member of Japan’s special forces – the Tokusha Sakusen Gun. Kamishi was something of a modern-day samurai; a soldier of the higher path. A man steeped in the mystic warrior creed of the East – of bushido – he and Jaeger had developed a deep affinity during their time in the Amazon.

  Third was Joe James, a giant bear of a man and arguably the most unforgettable of Jaeger’s former Amazon team. With his long, straggly hair and massive beard, he looked like a cross between a homeless bum and a Hell’s Angels biker.

  In reality, he was a former member of the New Zealand SAS – perhaps the toughest and most renowned of the Special Air Service family. A natural-born bushman and tracker, he was part-Maori, which made him a natural running mate to Takavesi Raffara.

  Having undertaken countless SAS combat missions, James had struggled to come to terms with losing so many mates along the way. But over the years Jaeger had learned to never judge a book by its cover. James had a can-do attitude second to none. Equally as important, he possessed an unrivalled think-outside-the box mentality.

  Jaeger respected him greatly as an operator.

  Plus there was Irina Narov, of course, though she and Jaeger had spoken barely a word since he had faced his brutal testing.

  In the intervening twenty-four hours, Jaeger had largely come to terms with what had happened, recognising it for what it was: a classic case of resistance-to-interrogation training – what they called ‘R2I’ in the trade.

  Every SAS hopeful was subjected to R2I as the culmination of the murderous selection course. It came complete with much of what Jaeger had suffered here: shock, surprise, disorientation, plus horrific mind games.

  Throughout the days of simulated physical and psychological testing, they were st
udied minutely for anything that might betray a propensity to crack or to sell out their fellow operators. If they answered any of the questions thrown at them – answers that would betray their mission – they were thrown off the selection course.

  Hence the answer learned as if it were a lifesaving mantra: I cannot answer that question, sir.

  Here at Falkenhagen, it had all come so utterly out of the blue, and was executed so mercilessly, that it had never occurred to Jaeger that it might be a dark and vicious game. And with Narov playing her part to perfection, he had been convinced that he had suffered the ultimate betrayal.

  He’d been tricked, beaten and taken to the edge, but he was alive, and he was one step closer to finding Ruth and Luke. And right now that was all he cared about.

  ‘Gentlemen, Irina, thank you for coming.’ Peter Miles’s words served to drag Jaeger’s mind back to the present. The elderly man glanced around at the concrete and steel edifice. ‘Much of what we are here for is rooted in this place. In its terrifying history. In these dark walls.’

  He turned his attention fully on his audience. There was an intensity about the man’s gaze that Jaeger hadn’t seen before. It demanded attention.

  ‘Germany. Spring 1945,’ he announced. ‘The Fatherland had been overrun by the Allies, German resistance crumbling fast. Many of the key Nazis were already in Allied hands.

  ‘The top commanders were taken to an interrogation centre near Frankfurt, codenamed Dustbin. There, they tried to deny point blank that the Reich had ever possessed weapons of mass killing, or planned to use them to win the war. But, one of the captives eventually broke, and confessed to what at first seemed to be a series of incredible revelations.

  ‘Under intense questioning he revealed that the Nazis had developed three fearsome chemical agents: tabun and sarin nerve gases, and the fabled Kampfsoffe – poison gas – called N-stoff, or Substance N. He also confessed to the full extent of Hitler’s Chemicplan – his project to manufacture thousands of tonnes of chemical agents to crush the Allies. What was extraordinary is that this was utterly unknown to the Allies, and consequently we possessed no defence against such agents.